Digital Commerce Strategies

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Meet the Experts

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Heather Hershey

Research Director, Worldwide Digital Commerce



The Digital Commerce Strategies subscription marketing intelligence service examines the expansive competitive landscape of global digital commerce, product experiences, and marketplaces to provide analysis of trends and opportunities for both B2B and B2C commercial operations. This research includes key trends and differentiating factors on the individual application level (such as all-in-one products for commerce), the composed "system of systems" level (such as commerce engines composed of modular microservice applications and partner integrations that create composable commerce systems), and the digital platforms for transactions (such as payment as a service providers and merchant of record services). Digital commerce is where AI-enhanced customer experiences are transformed to extract maximum customer lifetime value (CLV). Digital Commerce CIS provides a worldwide perspective and looks at all forms of digital commerce across all vertical industries and regional markets.


Markets and Subjects Analyzed


  • Digital commerce applications that target businesses of all sizes and industries
  • Headless and modular/composable digital commerce
  • Proliferation of cloud-native software architectures in commerce
  • The growth trajectory of digital commerce and the forces driving that growth (e.g., sustainable commerce, D2C, and channel explosion)
  • Tracking the convergence of sales and B2B commerce, marketing, and B2C commerce accelerated by generative AI
  • Complex configurable digital product experiences
  • Impact of AI/ML (including ML and generative AI), cloud, social, mobile, and Big Data technologies on vendor strategies for employee, customer, supplier, partner, and asset engagement
  • Composable software for commerce, such as CPQ, payments and billing, order and inventory management, web content management, AI merchandising, PIM/PXM, digital shelf analytics; cart, payment; and promotions; loyalty apps, and commerce gamification interfaces

Core Research


  • Digital Commerce Applications Vendor Shares, Forecasts, and Competitive Analyses
  • IDC MarketScape: Digital Commerce Applications for B2B, B2C, and B2B2C, CPQ, PIM, PXM, Personalization, and SaaS Marketplaces
  • Opportunities to Leverage AI in Top-to-Bottom Commerce Operations
  • Headless Commerce Series
  • Digital Maturity Mapping of Commerce Composability Themes
  • Systems Integrators in Modular Commerce Systems of Systems
  • Large Marketplace and Social Media Platforms Facilitating Transactions via Native Carts and Built-In Commerce Features
  • Loyalty and Retention: CX Technologies That Minimize CAC While Providing Lift to CLV, ROAS, ACV, and Conversion Rates
  • Impacts of International Regulation on Global Commerce Markets
  • Sustainable Digital Commerce

In addition to the insight provided in this service, IDC may conduct research on specific topics or emerging market segments via research offerings that require additional IDC funding and client investment.


Key Questions Answered


  1. What is the growth potential of digital commerce vendors serving SMB, midmarket, and enterprise customers?
  2. What is the role of AI in commerce, and how can AI, ML, and generative AI be leveraged across the entire commerce stack?
  3. How can merchants optimize digital checkout and payment to avoid unintended friction and provide an immediate lift to revenue?
  4. What impact will regulation have on processes, software, and strategies leveraged throughout the entire commerce/CX stack?
  5. What return on investment will businesses see by purchasing digital commerce applications?
  6. What role do systems integration and consultancy firms play in digital commerce system creation and operation?
  7. How do digital commerce technologies interact across the ecosystem and functional areas?
  8. What is product experience management, and how does this differ from product information management?

Companies Covered