There are a large variety of eCommerce solutions, many of which are heavily advertised such as Wix, Weebly, and Squarespace. But what happens when you scale to an enterprise-level and need robust features that mainstream drag and drop online stores can’t handle?
Enter AmeriCommerce. The enterprise-ready eCommerce platform offers multi-store management from a single dashboard and admin, multi-vendor marketplaces, and wholesale and B2B support.
When it’s time to go all-in, the software you choose is even more important. I’ll take you through the features, pros and cons, and even alternatives so you can make an informed choice for your successful eCommerce business.
What is AmeriCommerce?
AmeriCommerce is an all-in-one eCommerce software for multiple storefronts. Whether you have a small online business or sell in high volumes, AmeriCommerce is built to scale with you.
The platform is rich in features including CRM, payment gateways, discounts, abandoned cart, loyalty programs, inventory management, email marketing, and more.
AmeriCommerce History
AmeriCommerce was created in 2005 by 3 eCommerce web developers, Ed Sturrock, Charlie Cooper, and Stefan Barlow. By 2014, the platform was purchased by Capital One under the name Spark Pay.
However, the AmeriCommerce team rallied and it became its own business again by 2017. AmeriCommerce is currently a privately owned company based in Texas. It serves 5,000+ online businesses.
Pros
- Multi-store capable on one dashboard
- Wholesale and B2B
- Marketing tools
- Free, modern themes
- Headless commerce to sell your products anywhere online
- Multi-vendor marketplace
- Reward points and reward tiers
Cons
- No 24/7 support (only have support during business hours M-F)
- No chat support
- No in-person training
- No mobile app
- Traffic cap (overage fees)
- Storage cap (overage fees)
- Product cap
- Transaction fees
- Lack of payment gateways
System Requirements
AmeriCommerce is a cloud-based software. You can manage your online store with only an Internet connection and a web browser. With one mouse click, view a detailed dashboard filled with sales, marketing, and inventory reports.
Pricing
AmeriCommerce has a free 14-day trial available. No credit card is required to start the trial and all features are included so you can get a good understanding of what the software can provide for your online shop. There are currently 5 different tiered plans to choose from.
All plans include unlimited features, unlimited staff accounts, 100+ integrations, no transaction fees, no sales volume penalty, free shared SSL, multi-store options, REST API access, and free templates and themes.
Steel – $24.95 per month ($299.40 per year)
- 100 Products
- 2 GB Traffic
- 250 MB Storage
- (optional)
- AmeriCommerce Payments
- 2.9% + 30¢
Bronze – $39 per month ($468 per year)
- 500 Products
- 3 GB Traffic
- 1 GB Storage
- (optional)
- AmeriCommerce Payments
- 2.9% + 30¢
Silver – $99 per month ($995 per year)
- 5,000 Products
- 15 GB Traffic
- 1 GB Storage
- (optional)
- AmeriCommerce Payments
- 2.5% + 30¢
Gold – $149 per month ($1495 per year)
- 10,000 Products
- 25 GB Traffic
- 2 GB Storage
- (optional)
- AmeriCommerce Payments
- 2.5% + 30¢
Platinum – $299 per month ($3000 per year)
- Unlimited Products
- 50 GB Traffic
- 5 GB Storage
- (optional)
- AmeriCommerce Payments
- 2.3% + 30¢
Multi-Store
Add a store for only $39 per month per store. You can manage all of your stores from a single dashboard.
Enterprise
Need a custom plan? Get priority service, lower rates for payments, higher API call limits, and more.
Features
Wholesale and B2B
If you sell both wholesale and retail, AmeriCommerce can help you create custom customer types. When the customer logs in, different pricing models appear depending on whether they are retail or wholesale customers.
Automatic expiry dates for quotes, add discounts for VIPs, and custom and private comments. Expand product offerings by adding products that aren’t in your main catalog but that can be purchased through the quote process.
Multi-Store
Run multiple stores all on a single dashboard and admin. Easily manage inventory, content, and customers too. Each store you add is only an additional $39 per month, so it’s easy to scale your business one store at a time. Assign users to individual stores and separate or combine brands to create a seamless shopping experience.
Each online store can have its own set of rules including pricing, shipping, emails, discounts, and more. Plus, you can add the same products to multiple stores depending on your selling strategy.
Marketing Tools
Drip series email marketing features a series of emails that engages your customer base, informs them of new product launches, and promotes sales.
Use customer rewards and points to keep your fans coming back for more. They can purchase products with points, and earn points for doing the marketing for you.
Blog tools help you connect with your customer while creating a content calendar that will keep you consistent. Embed products in your blog posts to boost sales.
The abandoned cart feature keeps your customers from forgetting that they haven’t completed their purchase. Automatic emails and special offers can increase sales without the heavy lifting.
Headless Commerce
In a world where everyone is on the go, why limit your eCommerce store to a single website? With headless commerce through AmeriCommerce, you can sell your products on your blog, social network, or marketplaces. Just copy and paste dynamic code to make any site, blog, or social media platform an immediate selling tool for your business.
Sync your inventory across multiple marketplaces including eBay, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Bing, Rakuten, and more. You can even sell directly from your WordPress blog.
Multi-Vendor Marketplaces
AmeriCommerce gives you the option to set up a multi-vendor marketplace. You can choose to set up a marketplace in one niche category or a variety of goods. Companies can be invited to your marketplace, have their profile, and online store.
Marketplace stores can be set up to have a unique URL on one domain or have their domain and theme. Each store is fully customizable, making it easy to expand your offerings. You will also enjoy powerful features like segmented product catalogs, custom discounts, unlimited users and vendors, and individual sales reports.
Reward Points
With AmeriCommerce you can provide your frequent purchasers with rewards to keep increasing sales without always seeking out new customers. Unlike simple reward points, the platform’s system can create reward tiers to separate reward earners.
You can set up reward tier levels that have to be reached in a certain amount of time. For example, if a customer spends $1,000 in a calendar year they earn bronze level rewards. Reward tiers can be set up as a fixed period and a rolling period.
The software has 4 different types of built-in email triggers. You can send welcome emails, nearing tier emails, nearing disqualification emails, and tier reminder emails.
Services
AmeriCommerce offers the following services to its users. All services may incur additional costs.
- Web and graphic design
- Custom web development
- Data and platform migration
- Marketing services
- E-commerce consulting
Customer Service
AmeriCommerce offers phone support via its 800 number (800-936-9006) during business hours (Monday through Friday 9 AM – 6 PM CST).
You can also search their extensive knowledge base to answer common questions regarding onboarding, product catalog, payments, taxes, shipping, themes, store operations, marketing tools, and integrations. You can even view status updates, make a feature request, API documentation, and more.
Security
As with any web software, you need to be vigilant about security. AmeriCommerce protects its customer information by 128bit SSL encryption backed by GeoTrust or Verisign. It stores customer information using military-grade AES encryptions. All web servers use enterprise-quality Cisco firewalls. For added protection, customer databases are separated from web servers by an additional Cisco firewall.
Alternatives
Shift4Shop (formerly 3dCart)
Shift4Shop was created in the late 1990s by Gonzalo Gil. Gonzalo customized shopping carts for eCommerce business owners and aimed to make Shift4Shop an all-in-one eCommerce solution. New features are being added even to this day.
Pros
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Unlimited storage space
- 24/7 customer service
- Buy button widget
- Integrates with Facebook, Amazon, eBay
- No transaction fees
- Premium free plan
Cons
- Paid plans have revenue limits
- Payment gateway issues
Pricing
When you choose Shift4Shop, you will have access to a premium $0 per month plan as long as you agree to use their payment processor, Shift4 Payments. Their in-house payment process comes with mixed reviews, so I recommend you do your research before diving in.
If you want to use a different payment processor, there are three plans available (custom plans available upon request). Each plan comes with unlimited products and no additional transaction fees.
End-to-End Ecommerce – $0 per month
- Unlimited Staff Users
- All the Features
- No Limits
- Powered by Shift4 Payments
Basic Store – $29 per month
- 2 Staff Users
- No additional transaction fees
- Unlimited Products
Plus Store – $79 per month
- 5 Staff Users
- No additional transaction fees
- Unlimited Products
Pro Store – $229 per month
- 15 Staff Users
- No additional transaction fees
- Unlimited Products
BigCommerce
In 2020, BigCommerce won awards for top 20 website builder software and top 20 eCommerce software. The SaaS platform (aka a monthly fee product) provides a hosted eCommerce solution which means it runs on its servers.
This alleviates the need to buy your web hosting or install any software to use. BigCommerce allows you to sell both physical and digital products.
Pros
- Cloud, desktop, and mobile options
- 24/7 customer service
- Live chat
- Digital product support
- Unlimited products
- Drag and drop builder
- Unlimited staff accounts
- Up to 250 product variants
- POS
Cons
- Limits on annual sales by tier plan
- A small selection of free themes
- Manual category entry
Pricing
All BigCommerce plans include no additional transaction fees and unlimited products, file storage, bandwidth, and staff accounts.
Standard $29.95 per month, Plus $79.95 per month, Pro $299.95 per month, and Enterprise (contact for pricing).
Seamlessly list, optimize, advertise, sell and fulfill products across 100+ channels. All the capabilities of enterprise ecommerce—without the cost or complexity.
Miva
Miva was created in 1997 and since its founding has helped launch over 500,000 online stores. From small businesses to enterprises, Miva offers advanced features, personalization, and attentive customer support.
The platform offers a free 30-day trial, however, credit card information is necessary to start the trial. Sign up for a developer account to see a store demo without the commitment.
Pros
- Easy to scale
- Advanced features
- Physical and digital products
- Wish lists for shopping cart
- Upsell and cross-sell
Cons
- Limited users
- Learning curve
- Plans are pricey and based on your annual revenue
- Bandwidth and storage overages
Pricing
Starter for Merchants with Annual Revenue $0 — $99,999.99
$79.95 per month
- 2GB online storage
- 20GB bandwidth
- 2 Admin seats
- 1-year free Rapid SSL ($49 after the first year)
- 1-year free domain
- Unlimited products
Business for Merchants with Annual Revenue $100k — $499,999.99
$249.95 per month
- 5GB online storage
- 100GB bandwidth
- 3 Admin seats
- 1-year free GeoTrustSSL Premium ($149 after the first year)
- 1-year free domain
Professional for Merchants with Annual Revenue $500k — $999,999.99
$749.95 per month
- 10GB online storage
- 250GB bandwidth
- 5 Admin seats
- 1-year free GeoTrustSSL TrueBusiness ($199/yr after the first year)
- 1-year free domain
- Custom dedicated environment
- VIP tech support
- Service Level Agreement
Enterprise for Merchants with Annual Revenue $1 Million+
$1,495 per month
- 20GB online storage
- 1,000GB bandwidth
- 10 Admin seats
- GeoTrust TrueBusiness EV SSL ($199/yr after the first year)
- 1-year free domain
- Dedicated environment
- VIP tech support
- VIP Account Manager
- Service Level Agreement
Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus is a fully customizable, automated eCommerce store that can scale to the enterprise level. It is a fully hosted SaaS eCommerce solution. Since it is self-hosted, it is constantly monitored for fraud and downtime and upgraded frequently to maximize the customer experience.
Pros
- SEO optimized
- Fully customizable
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Manage up to 10 stores at once
- Complex scripts (free shipping, gift, etc.)
- Wholesale
- 1,500 third-party apps
- 24/7 priority support from a dedicated account manager
Cons
- The hosted platform requires you to lock in your store
- Content management could be improved
Pricing
The Shopify Plus plan starts at $2,000 a month for standard setups and integrations. If you have complex needs or higher business volume, the platform has a variable fee structure.
Migration to Shopify Plus from another platform is your responsibility and can incur additional fees when an outside source is used. Other costs include premium theme purchases, third-party app, and tax automation software (approximately $250 per month).
FAQs
Question: What is my AmeriCommerce site version?
Question: How much traffic can my AmeriCommerce online store handle?
Question: Why aren’t my products showing up?
If you are only missing a couple of products, the product is likely hidden. You can check to see if your product is hidden by clicking on Catalog on the left side of the page, then choose Products.
Edit any product that is not showing up and then make sure “Hide Product” is not checked. You can also check your catalog categories if an entire category is hidden.
For products that are inactivated by customer types, simply go to Catalog > Products > Edit Product > Stores.
Question: Who owns my AmeriCommerce online store and data?
Question: Who owns my AmeriCommerce online store and data?
Question: What payment gateways does AmeriCommerce support?
Question: How do I set up free shipping?
Question: What integrations can I use with AmeriCommerce?
Final Thoughts About AmeriCommerce
Running a large business online can take a variety of software. To decrease costs and frustration, you can minimize the software you need by choosing all-in-one solutions. AmeriCommerce is best suited for enterprises that are interested in multiple modes of selling including multiple stores, wholesale, B2B, and managing marketplaces.
The platform has marketing tools, sufficient themes and integrations, and an inclusive dashboard to run multiple businesses or storefronts with ease.
The downside of AmeriCommerce is its lack of support. Users only receive support during business hours so it is risky when eCommerce businesses need to up and running 24/7.
Plus, the software has traffic, storage, and product caps with overage fees for most of its plans. This is a disadvantage compared to competitors with unlimited traffic and storage capabilities.
I would recommend AmeriCommerce for business owners who appreciate a single dashboard and log-in and are seeking to take their business to the next level using wholesale and building a marketplace for other vendors.
