E-Commerce Software Resources

Articles, Glossary Terms, Discussions, and Reports to expand your knowledge on E-Commerce Software

Resource pages are designed to give you a cross-section of information we have on specific categories. You'll find articles from our experts, feature definitions, discussions from users like you, and reports from industry data.

Contents

E-Commerce Software Articles

What Is Social Commerce, and Why We Created a New Category for It

The fact that social media is critical for e-commerce is obvious. There are billions of users on social media platforms, and many of them buy online. It is estimated that the number of social media users worldwide will reach 5.85 billion by 2027. In addition, sellers also use social media to share and promote their products—the value of social commerce sales worldwide is estimated at 2.9 trillion dollars by 2026.

by Gabriel Gheorghiu

COVID-19 Drives E-Commerce Growth for Brick and Mortar Retailers

The coronavirus pandemic has compelled consumers to stay home in quarantine, driving some brick and mortar stores to either move online or adopt a combination of both in-store (curbside pickup) and online sales methods for the first time.

by Nathan Calabrese

E-Commerce Software Glossary Terms

Customer Experience Management

Customer experience management (CXM) prioritizes personalized experiences at every customer interaction. Learn more about its benefits for businesses.

by Holly Landis

Headless CMS

A headless content management system is back-end software that allows connection to any presentation layer via application programming interfaces (APIs.)

by Kelly Fiorini

Go-to-Market Strategy

A go-to-market strategy is an all-encompassing plan for launching a new product or service. Learn how to create a GTM strategy and why it’s important.

by Holly Landis

E-Commerce Software Discussions

Zakeke vs Kickflip for mobile-friendly product customization: which fits social-sharing use cases better?

Question for the Shopify reviewers and researchers on G2. Zakeke vs Kickflip for mobile-friendly product customization: which one fits social-sharing use cases better, where the shopper's own design is the thing that gets posted?

Both are 4.6-rated, both live mostly in small retail and apparel stores, both sit in the Visual Product Customization Software category on G2, and both update the preview as the shopper works. The split is in what the preview is.

Zakeke (4.6/5, 85+ reviews) pulls ahead on 3D and AR: virtual try-on, AR view on the shopper's phone, and multilingual stores across 10,000+ retailers. E-commerce integration scores 0.95. The output is a shopper holding the product on their own face or in their own room, which is the natural share.
Kickflip (4.6/5, 120+ reviews) pulls ahead on speed and simplicity: multi-angle live previews, live colouring on defined areas, dynamic pricing and mix-and-match bundles, with the category's top Satisfaction score at 97. The output is a clean product render from several angles, ready to post as-is.

Simplest way to decide: if the share is "this is me wearing it," Zakeke. If the share is "look what I designed," Kickflip.

For anyone who's run either with a UGC campaign behind it, which one actually produced the posts, and is there a third option worth adding here?

The framing at the end nails it, if the share is "this is me wearing it" you want Zakeke's AR and try-on strength, and if the share is "look what I designed" Kickflip's clean multi-angle render is the better fit. Kickflip's 97 satisfaction score is genuinely the highest I've seen cited in this category.

Answered: Krithika Sathyamoorthy on September 4, 2026

Your answer

Is visual customization platform reliability tested for high-traffic promotional periods like Black Friday?

Hoping to get a read from store owners who've run a customizer through a peak weekend. Is visual customization platform reliability actually tested for high-traffic periods like Black Friday, or is "scales with your store" just a line on the pricing page?

Every vendor says it. The hard part is that a customizer fails differently from a store. Shopify stays up while the preview iframe hangs, and a shopper who can't see the preview doesn't buy the product. So the questions are specific: is there a written SLA, is the preview rendered on a CDN or on the vendor's servers, and has the vendor published a load test?

From the Visual Product Customization Software category on G2, what each says for itself:

Zakeke (4.6/5, 85+ reviews): Cloud platform serving 10,000+ retailers, with E-commerce integration scored 0.95, the category high. Trade-off: no published SLA on the site, so ask for one.
Kickflip (4.6/5, 120+ reviews): Real-time previews scored 0.92, with the highest Satisfaction in the category at 97. Trade-off: a 24-person team, so support capacity on a peak day is the thing to check.
Threekit (4.4/5, 60+ reviews): ISO 27001 certified, API-first, built for manufacturer traffic. Trade-off: enterprise pricing.
Cylindo (4.8/5, 10+ reviews): Pre-rendered 3D visuals delivered as images, so peak load hits a CDN, not a renderer. Websites integration scores 0.98. Trade-off: furniture-focused.

Has a customizer ever gone down on you during a promotion while the store stayed up, and what did the vendor's SLA turn out to cover?

Cylindo’s pre-rendered approach is interesting because shifting delivery to a CDN changes the scaling equation during a traffic spike. For real-time configurators like Kickflip or Zakeke, I’d want peak-load behavior tested before the promotion rather than discovered during it. Do retailers typically include the customizer in their Black Friday load testing alongside checkout and storefront performance?

Answered: Shubham Gupta on August 27, 2026

Your answer

Is a visual customization platform with intuitive design tools worth it compared to traditional product selection?

Most stores still sell the traditional way: a product page, a photo, and a dropdown for size or color. A visual configurator replaces that with design tools customers use themselves. Is a product configurator with intuitive design tools genuinely worth it compared to traditional product selection?

The honest answer is that it depends on what you sell, and the review data in G2's Visual Product Customization category shows what the tools do well:

Zakeke: 4.6 stars, 85+ reviews. G2 reviewers rate its real-time preview at 93%, which is the core of the worth-it case: customers see exactly what they are buying, which builds confidence a static photo cannot.
Kickflip: Rated 5.0 on G2, with the highest satisfaction score (97) in the category's overall grid, evidence that merchants running configurators tend to be happy with the trade.
Dopple: G2 users rate its 3D configurator at 96% and 360-degree view at 97%, the strongest visualization scores in the category's feature data, showing how far past a dropdown this experience can go.

Where it is worth it: products with many combinations, personalized goods, and considered purchases where seeing the exact result reduces hesitation and returns. Where it is not: fixed catalogs with a handful of variants, where a well-photographed product page and a simple selector do the job without the cost of 3D assets and setup.

The deciding question is whether customization is part of what you sell or just how you present it. The first justifies a configurator; the second usually does not.

For stores that added a configurator, did it measurably change conversion or returns compared to standard product pages?

After analyzing the Visual Product Customization category on G2, the deciding line the post draws, whether customization is part of what you sell or just how you present it, is the sharpest way to frame this, because it separates a real capability need from a nice-to-have. Real-time preview and 3D visualization solve a genuine trust problem for products with many combinations or personalized options, where a static photo simply cannot show the customer what they're actually going to receive.

For a fixed catalog with a handful of variants, though, that same visualization investment is solving a problem that mostly doesn't exist, since a well-shot product photo and a simple dropdown already give the customer enough certainty to buy. The category's strength scores concentrate around visualization quality specifically, which lines up with the idea that these tools earn their cost on considered, configurable purchases and add comparatively little to products people already buy without hesitation.