When enterprise eCommerce growth slows down, it’s never because of just one reason.
When brands grow, SKUs increase, there are more markets to manage, and more customers to serve. All this can put pressure on operational and technological systems.
None of these issues show up as a single problem, but rather, they show up as friction — slower product launches, higher costs, inconsistent customer experiences, and growing gaps.
In this article, we discuss nine of the most common enterprise eCommerce bottlenecks that’ll help you identify whether your enterprise Shopify Plus business is going through any of these problems.
What are eCommerce bottlenecks?
In eCommerce, bottlenecks are any processes, systems, or dependencies that negatively affect speed or efficiency. Bottlenecks do not mean something is completely broken. They can be caused due to limitations, speed issues, and inefficiencies.
Bottlenecks can be invisible at small scale, but they become unavoidable at large scale. For example, when bottlenecks occur in the case of 100 SKUs, they can be manually figured. But what if there are 5000 SKUs? This is when bottlenecks can cause major issues.
For enterprise brands, bottlenecks can hamper growth. For instance, there might be demand in the market, your business, too, wants to make use of the opportunity and grow, but your operational and technical infrastructure aren’t able to keep pace with the requirements to fulfill the market demand. Those are bottlenecks.
9 enterprise eCommerce bottlenecks that slow growth
Here are 9 common enterprise eCommerce bottlenecks that you must know about and identify in your platform to ensure growth and scalability.
1. Legacy commerce architecture
Consider this: 62% of organizations still rely on legacy commerce structures. Legacy architecture usually has various components of commerce tied together in such a way that it becomes hard to make changes to any one individual component. Tight coupling is one its biggest drawbacks.
For instance, the storefront, checkout, order management, and business logic are all tied to each other. Hence, if you want to make a change to the checkout logic, it will impact all the other components.
Moreover, legacy commerce systems that are built several years ago often have custom code layered over years. This means the architecture becomes so complex that no one ever understands it completely.
Here’s what this kind of a complex legacy architecture does:
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Heavy customizations that work as one-off solutions at a particular time, but end up affecting the platform in the long run, blocking business growth.
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It makes changes difficult because any small update requires a lot of time and effort for running tests during and after the updates are made.
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Brands on legacy architecture might be able to launch new products or markets but by the time the change shows, the market opportunity might have narrowed.
2. Fragmented enterprise systems
Almost 70% of businesses operate on fragmented systems and hence, lose 10 to 30% of revenue. Most enterprise eCommerce systems have a web of systems, such as ERP, CRM, PIM, OMS, WMS, and more. While each system might function well individually, gaps between the systems can lead to bottlenecks.
Here are some enterprise eCommerce bottlenecks caused by fragmented systems:
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Data is duplicated when customer or product information is entered separately in multiple systems.
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It requires manual processes to fill the gaps, which can cause errors and can be time consuming.
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Fragmented eCommerce systems provide poor visibility and no real-time accurate views of the customer journey or orders.
The bottleneck keeps increasing enterprise eCommerce challenges every time a new system is added to the eCommerce tech stack. Over time, the architecture ends up with several such bottlenecks that affect speed and accuracy.
3. Complex product catalog management
As enterprise businesses grow, the number of SKUs, product variants, and bundles increase. With large product catalogs come bigger complexities related to technical and operational processes. This causes friction that can lead to bottlenecks.
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Large numbers of SKUs make manual processes difficult and impossible.
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The more the product variants, the more records it needs in different systems.
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Bundles increase inventory complexity, because each bundle has a different pricing logic.
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Product information becomes inconsistent, for example, missing attributes, inconsistent descriptions and titles.
The above inconsistencies lead to merchandising teams spending more time on cleaning data. Thus, tasks related to products become more tedious and less strategic or creative.
4. Slow product and feature releases
According to McKinsey, enterprise brands tend to lose $2 billion because of a four-month product delay. And when launching a product or a new feature takes weeks or months rather than days, it’s mostly a sign of something that is broken. And this can add to costs over time. For instance, if your eCommerce store sells fast-moving products but the launch gets delayed, it is going to cost you revenue.
Here are some common reasons for enterprise eCommerce bottlenecks:
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Slow releases and launches are often caused by dependencies on other teams. For instance, they could be a queue of priorities, the supporting team is small and hence unable to manage requests.
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If the approval processes are lengthy, requiring multiple sign-offs and not streamlined for speed, it can lead to delays.
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When a feature requires custom development, and the platform does not support quick updates, it could lead to bottlenecks.
5. Poor data flow across the commerce ecosystem
The various systems in the Shopify eCommerce architecture may not be disconnected, but the data flow between those systems can be. And that can pose as an enterprise eCommerce challenge. For instance, data movement between systems could be slow, incomplete, or unreliable.
Here are some examples of data flow between systems, required for eCommerce operational efficiency:
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Customer data, such as profile, purchase history, preferences, etc., required for personalization and service.
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Product data, including pricing, descriptions, availability, required for accurate merchandising.
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Inventory data, such as real-time stock levels, stores, and channels.
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Order data, including status, fulfillment, returns, required for customer service and operational planning.
When data flow breaks, it shows up as poor customer experience. Moreover, it can also lead to false data analysis, which is one of the most common causes for eCommerce enterprise bottlenecks.
6. Over-customization
To differentiate your brand, you will require customization in your Shopify Plus platform. However, if customization becomes a norm for your platform, rather than a thought-through practice, it can cause bottlenecks. For instance,
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If you have custom code that becomes difficult to maintain because there is no proper documentation of how it was created, it’s going to cause major problems.
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When customization has to be tested every time, it can lead to a pile of pending tasks, slowing down every small routine process.
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Small tasks that can be otherwise managed by marketing teams now require technical team involvement.
When customization starts creating new problems, it can lead to eCommerce growth bottlenecks. That is why it is critical to assess when to customize and when to avoid it, because these small issues may go unnoticed for a long time.
7. International and multi-brand complexity
Scaling to multiple locations, multiple markets, and multiple brands increases complexity and bottlenecks. Ecommerce architectures that cannot support scale have to rely on new or duplicate systems. This increases development and maintenance tasks. Multi-brand businesses need to design eCommerce architecture in a more strategic manner so as to avoid bottlenecks.
Here’s how scaling across borders increases bottlenecks:
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Different markets have their own tax compliance requirements, shipping rules, etc.
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Localized pricing and currency systems require more than just currency conversion.
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All products may not be available in all locations. Product messaging requires to be more than just translated into local languages.
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Multiple storefronts may require shared infrastructure but different front-end experiences.
8. Disconnected customer experiences
Whatever inconsistencies there are between your various channels, devices, and touchpoints eventually start surfacing as disconnected customer experiences. Here are some examples of how backend systems lead to bottlenecks:
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Customers see inconsistency across channels, for example, different pricing, promotions and loyalty benefits on different channels.
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When customers have to start over every time they change channels leads to fragmented customer data and no unified profile
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When customer data is scattered, it affects personalization, product recommendations, etc.
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Inconsistent and incomplete product data leads to search and merchandising limitations, a common reason causing enterprise eCommerce bottlenecks.
Most enterprise brands compete the hardest through customer experience. And if that layer is affected due to backend bottlenecks, it impacts business.
9. Lack of a scalable commerce strategy
Enterprise eCommerce architectures face bottlenecks that form over time. For instance, when you make technology decisions as reactions to events, or when you add a new feature without considering the complete architecture of your eCommerce platform.
Here are some examples of a lack of strategy:
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When you add a new tool to solve an immediate problem without considering how it may fit into the broader infrastructure.
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There’s no plan for an infrastructure roadmap for the future.
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When a new app or system gets integrated because it solves a small issue that may not be relevant to the entire infrastructure.
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If you cannot answer questions about what happens when your SKUs multiple, you could face infrastructural complexities that cause bottlenecks.
How to identify your biggest eCommerce bottlenecks?
Here are some cues to identify bottlenecks in your existing eCommerce infrastructure.
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Take stock of your platforms, systems, integrations, and dependencies in your existing eCommerce technology stack.
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Ensure your complete eCommerce infrastructure details should be available and handy to at least the concerned departments.
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Create a spreadsheet with details of all your eCommerce tools and integrations.
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Measure where growth often gets stuck.
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Track measurable indicators, such as time to launch, operational costs, order processing, product updates, etc.
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Separate systems from root causes. For instance, a slow product launch may have its root cause in poor data flow.
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Keep questioning why something got delayed or something cost more. Finding answers to whys will help avoid bottlenecks.
How to remove bottlenecks from your enterprise business
Consider these strategies to remove bottlenecks from your Shopify business.
1. Simplify the commerce architecture
Make it easy to update or change one component without disturbing the other parts of your eCommerce architecture. In short, reduce tight coupling and dependencies.
2. Connect critical business systems
Instead of adding more integrations, increase layers or middleware that gives ERP, PIM, OMS, and the storefront a consistent way to exchange data.
3. Standardize processes where possible
Identify where you can standardize processes instead of creating new ones. For example, a shared catalog structure, a common launch checklist, etc., can free up space for genuine customization.
4. Use extensibility strategically
Ensure that extensibility helps differentiate your brand in a way that matters commercially. Use platforms that offer extensibility frameworks that allow your brand to customize experiences without disturbing the core logic of your platform.
5. Build for scale
Avoid building for temporary needs and choose to build for scale. Evaluate new systems and processes for the long-term. This helps avoid reactive decisions.
Wrapping up - how to solve bottlenecks in your Shopify Plus architecture
Enterprise eCommerce bottlenecks do not occur overnight. They gather over time. The idea is not to remove every small complexity, but rather, it is to identify small issues that are slowing growth and efficiency. Once you identify these, you can update your technology architecture to ensure you can avoid bottlenecks from forming.
If you’re wondering how to identify or rectify bottlenecks in your eCommerce infrastructure, contact XgenTech.
