November is arguably the most important month for ecommerce leaders. So it’s fitting that the month kicked off with the 2025 edition of Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce. And some interesting movement has taken place that aligns to what we’re seeing in the landscape.
Let’s dive into the major points to know.
The Leader Race
While five companies made the Leader category in 2025, it’s really a three-horse race at the top with Shopify and Salesforce neck and neck followed by commercetools. And their placements are indicative of what we’ve seen this year.
Shopify: Shopify is the highest company in the Magic Quadrant when it comes to execution, but is behind Salesforce and commercetools in vision. Brands are flocking to Shopify for its simplicity and functionality, so it makes sense that Shopify scored high in execution.
Salesforce: Meanwhile, Salesforce Commerce Cloud has a reputation for being more complex, and with the benefit of Salesforce’s complete suite of technology platforms, the vision of how Commerce Cloud fits into the entire customer experience is where Salesforce has shined.
A New Challenger
A dramatic movement we were selfishly excited to see was from Scayle, who jumped up from a Niche Player in 2024 into the Challengers quadrant in 2025. We’ve seen the potential with Scayle for a while now, which is why we became a partner earlier this year.
When the partnership was announced, I said that Scayle’s dedication to being adaptable, innovative, and relentlessly focused on the customer is what all great ecommerce should be. And now Scayle’s focus on brands’ scalability, agility, and long-term growth is drawing it promising recognition in the industry.
If you’re not yet familiar with Scayle, it is a headless platform (meaning the front end can operate independently from the back end) and as such empowers continuous innovation and deep customization tailored to each brand's unique needs.
A Move Toward the Middle
One other interesting big-picture takeaway is a look at the landscape of the Magic Quadrant as a whole from last year to this year. In 2024, there were more platforms you could deem “outliers” in that they were far to the left if a Niche Player and to the right if a Leader or Visionary.
That really wasn’t the case this year. Those Leaders were largely brought back toward the center when it comes to completeness of vision and more organizations toed the center line of vision and execution. This speaks to the growing parity taking place in the technology space as advancement and innovation slows and more companies meet the baseline requirements.
Informing Your Decision
If you’re looking to make the move to a new platform in the coming year, one thing that should be apparent from this list is that there are a lot of great options at your disposal. It’s less about worrying you’ll make the wrong choice and more focusing on making the right one.
It all comes down to your brand’s specific needs. Is simplicity and execution more important than complexity and cohesiveness? Are you a challenger brand looking to tie yourself to another challenger in the space? No platform is going to be able to provide 100% of what you’re looking for, so make sure you prioritize what will have the greatest impact on your business and evaluate accordingly.
If you want to learn more about the ecommerce platforms we partner with (including several included in the Magic Quadrant) visit the Partner page on our website. And if you need help in making that selection, we’re here to help guide you to the right platform.