How the Wrong E-Commerce Platform Is Costing You Millions
Well now, let me tell you something that keeps a lot of business folks up at night—watching customers fill up their shopping carts online, only to walk
away before hitting that "buy" button. If you're dealing with cart abandonment rates hovering around 70% or higher, you're not alone, but that doesn't make it any less painful. Every single one of those abandoned carts represents real money walking right out your digital front door. I've been working with businesses for the better part of three decades, helping them make sense of their technology choices. And lately, I've been hearing two questions come up time and again: "Should we be using something called a delta lake?" and "Is it time to move away from Salesforce to something like commercetools?" Let me walk you through this like we're sitting on the porch with some sweet tea, because the answers might surprise you. Understanding Why Customers Abandon Their Carts Before we dive into the technical solutions, let's talk about why folks are leaving their carts behind in the first place. The main culprits are usually unexpected costs popping up at checkout, a checkout process that feels like filling out your taxes, being forced to create an account when you just want to buy one thing, worrying about whether your credit card information is safe, and pages that load slower than molasses in January. These problems aren't really about your data storage—they're about your customer experience and how your commerce platform handles the buying journey. The Data Lake vs Delta Lake Question Now, about that delta lake question. I appreciate that you're thinking about your data infrastructure, but let me be straight with you: when it comes to cart abandonment, the difference between a data lake vs delta lake isn't going to be your silver bullet. Here's why: A traditional data lake is like a big pond where you dump all your data—customer behavior, transaction records, inventory levels, you name it. It's cheap storage, and it holds everything, but it doesn't guarantee that the data is clean or organized. A delta lake, on the other hand, is more sophisticated. It adds a layer of reliability on top of that data lake, tracking changes and making sure your data is accurate and trustworthy. This is mighty useful for analytics and understanding customer behavior patterns over time. You can use it to figure out which customers are most likely to abandon their carts and why, but it's not going to fix a slow checkout page or a confusing payment process.
Think of it this way: If your checkout process is a leaky bucket, having better data about how much water you're losing doesn't plug the holes. The data lake vs delta lake decision matters for your analytics and business intelligence. I’ll help you understand the problem better, but it won't directly solve the customer-facing issues causing the abandonment. The Salesforce vs commercetools Consideration Now here's where things get more interesting for your cart abandonment problem. The question of Salesforce vs commercetools is actually more relevant to what you're dealing with. Salesforce Commerce Cloud is what we call a monolithic platform, where everything's bundled together in one package. It works well for many businesses, but it can be less flexible when you need to customize your checkout experience or integrate with specific payment processors and fraud detection tools. commercetools, on the other hand, takes a different approach called "composable commerce." Instead of one big system, it's built with APIs that let you pick and choose the best tools for each job. Think of it like building with LEGO blocks instead of buying a pre-built house. This flexibility can be a real advantage when you're trying to optimize your checkout process and reduce those abandonment rates. The composable approach means you can test different checkout flows, integrate best-in-class payment solutions, and customize the experience without being locked into one vendor's way of doing things. If you discover that your customers are abandoning carts because your payment processing is too slow, you can swap in a faster solution without rebuilding your entire platform. What Really Matters for Cart Abandonment Here's the thing, though: neither platform is a magic wand. Whether you stick with Salesforce or move to commercetools, you've still got to do the hard work of optimizing your checkout process. That means offering guest checkout options, being upfront about all costs from the get-go, streamlining your forms, ensuring your pages load fast, and making customers feel confident about security. The real question isn't just about the technology—it's about having the right
partner to help you implement it properly. I've seen businesses spend a fortune on the latest and greatest platforms, only to end up with the same problems because they didn't have experienced folks helping them configure everything correctly and integrate all the pieces. The Path Forward If I were sitting down with you to plan your e-commerce strategy, here's what I'd recommend: First, get a proper assessment of your current checkout process. Where exactly are customers dropping off? Is it the payment page? The shipping cost reveal? The account creation requirement? You need good data to make good decisions, and this is where improved analytics infrastructure, whether that's a delta lake or better business intelligence tools, can help you diagnose the problem. Second, think carefully about your platform choice. If you're already on Salesforce and it's working reasonably well, you might not need to switch. But if you're constantly frustrated by limitations and your development team is spending more time fighting the platform than improving the customer experience, then exploring composable options like commercetools makes sense. Third, and this is the most important part: you want to work with a consulting and integration firm that really knows this space. The difference between success and failure usually isn't the technology itself, but how well it's implemented and integrated with your existing systems. You need folks who can handle the complex integrations, understand your business requirements, and translate those into technical solutions that actually work. The Bottom Line Cart abandonment is a serious problem that requires a comprehensive solution. Better data infrastructure helps you understand the problem. A flexible, modern commerce platform gives you the tools to fix it. But neither one works without the expertise to bring it all together properly. The technology is just the hammer and nails—you still need a skilled craftsman to build the house. Don't let another day go by watching customers walk away at checkout. Partner with experienced integration specialists who can assess your specific
situation, recommend the right combination of technologies, and implement solutions that actually reduce those abandonment rates and put more revenue on your bottom line.
