Dries Buytaert

Earlier this week Matt Mullenweg, founder and CEO of Automattic, parent company of WordPress.com, announced the acquisition of WooCommerce. This is a very interesting move that I think cements the SMB/enterprise positioning between WordPress and Drupal.

As Matt points out a huge percentage of the digital experiences on the web are now powered by open source solutions: WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. Yet one question the acquisition may evoke is: "How will open source platforms drive ecommerce innovation in the future?".

Larger retailers with complex requirements usually rely on bespoke commerce engines or built their online stores on solutions such as Demandware, Hybris and Magento. Small businesses access essential functions such as secure transaction processing, product information management, shipping and tax calculations, and PCI compliance from third-party solutions such as Shopify, Amazon's merchant services and increasingly, solutions from Squarespace and Wix.

I believe the WooCommerce acquisition by Automattic puts WordPress in a better position to compete against the slickly marketed offerings from Squarespace and Wix, and defend WordPress's popular position among small businesses. WooCommerce brings to WordPress a commerce toolkit with essential functions such as payments processing, inventory management, cart checkout and tax calculations.

Drupal has a rich library of commerce solutions ranging from Drupal Commerce — a library of modules offered by Commerce Guys — to connectors offered by Acquia for Demandware and other ecommerce engines. Brands such as LUSH Cosmetics handle all of their ecommerce operations with Drupal, others, such as Puma, use a Drupal-Demandware integration to combine the best elements of content and commerce to deliver stunning shopping experiences that break down the old division between brand marketing experiences and the shopping process. Companies such as Tesla Motors have created their own custom commerce engine and rely on Drupal to deliver the front-end customer experience across multiple digital channels from traditional websites to mobile devices, in-store kiosks and more.

To me, this further accentuates the division of the CMS market with WordPress dominating the small business segment and Drupal further solidifying its position with larger organizations with more complex requirements. I'm looking forward to seeing what the next few years will bring for the open source commerce world, and I'd love to hear your opinion in the comments.