B2B Platform Selection Requires a Guide, Not a Sales Pitch

B2B Platform Selection: Avoiding the Abundance Trap

Author

Brent Peterson
July 02, 2025

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B2B Platform Selection Requires a Guide, Not a Sales Pitch

B2B Platform Selection: Avoiding the Abundance Trap

The B2B platform options have exploded from simple 1990s quote forms to thousands of sophisticated options including Shopify Plus, Adobe Commerce, headless solutions, and specialized platforms. While choice abundance seems beneficial, it creates decision paralysis and leads many organizations into "technology hell."

The core problem isn't finding platforms. The problem is cutting through vendor noise to identify what truly fits your business. Platform-specific partners create hidden bias, pushing their preferred solutions regardless of actual fit. A Shopify specialist will demonstrate why Shopify solves everything; an Adobe expert champions enterprise features. They don’t necessarily start with your requirements.

Critical considerations include the self-hosted versus SaaS decision, which impacts customization capabilities and future AI integration potential. Self-hosted solutions offer unlimited development possibilities, while SaaS platforms create limitations through predefined APIs and rate restrictions.

Wrong platform choices compound over time, creating technical debt, operational inefficiencies, and expensive migration challenges. Success requires platform-agnostic evaluation starting with your requirements, honest technical capability assessment, and understanding true customization needs versus nice-to-have features.

Independent, systematic evaluation methodology cuts through marketing promises to operational realities, matching platform architecture to actual business needs rather than theoretical capabilities.

Read the complete deep-dive analysis, including the three-tier framework and recovery strategies, in the full article: B2B Platform Selection Requires a Guide, Not a Sales Pitch

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E-commerce news of the week

In June, Shopware introduced Agentic Commerce and expanded AI solutions to transform e-commerce, emphasizing their B2B growth strategy. The new Shopware AI combines rational and emotional shopping behaviors, featuring an AI-powered Image Editor for realistic product scenes and a chat-based Copilot assistant for merchant tasks.

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