Online retail used to mean operating one website. That is no longer how many retailers work. A customer may discover a product through Instagram, compare it on Google, purchase through Amazon, return it through the retailer’s website, and later make another purchase through a physical store or marketplace.

Meanwhile, the retailer needs to keep inventory, orders, product information, customers, payments, shipping, returns, warehouses, marketplaces, storefronts, and reporting aligned across those channels.

That is the real omnichannel challenge. The best omnichannel software does not simply help a retailer sell in more places. It helps those channels operate as part of a more connected retail environment.

Some platforms focus primarily on ecommerce and marketplace selling. Others specialize in inventory and order orchestration. Universell takes a broader operational approach by connecting ecommerce and retail activities with CRM, inventory, payments, sales, marketing, customer management, and other business functions.

To keep this comparison consistent, each platform is evaluated using the same criteria:

• Overview
• Key Features
• Pricing
• Example Use Case
• Best For
• Strengths
• Limitations

Product and pricing information should always be confirmed directly with each provider before purchasing.

Quick-Scan Comparison: Omnichannel Retail Platforms

The biggest difference between these products is not simply how many channels they connect. It is how well inventory, orders, products, customer information, and fulfillment stay synchronized after those channels are added.

What Online Retailers Actually Need From Omnichannel Software

Centralized Inventory Visibility

Inventory is often one of the first areas to become difficult when retailers expand across multiple channels. If a business sells the same product through its website, Amazon, Walmart, TikTok Shop, and physical stores, inventory needs to reflect sales activity across all of them.

A stronger setup looks closer to: Central Inventory → Website + Marketplaces + Stores

This can help reduce overselling, cancellations, and manual stock adjustments.

Centralized Order Management

Orders may arrive from multiple sources:

• Website
• Amazon
• eBay
• Walmart
• TikTok Shop
• Social commerce
• Wholesale portals
• International storefronts
• Physical stores

Employees should ideally be able to view and manage those transactions without checking multiple unrelated dashboards.

Marketplace Connectivity

Retailers should evaluate how easily the platform connects with relevant marketplaces and social-commerce channels.

Important channels may include Amazon, Walmart, eBay, TikTok Shop, Google, Meta, Pinterest, and others depending on the retailer.

Product Information Consistency

Managing thousands of products across several channels can create significant duplication.

Retailers need a reliable way to maintain product titles, descriptions, prices, images, variants, and availability without manually editing every channel separately.

Multi-Warehouse Fulfillment

As retailers add warehouses, stores, 3PLs, and fulfillment partners, they need to determine where each order should ship from. A connected system can help route orders according to inventory location, customer location, shipping cost, and other business rules.

Customer Experience Across Channels

Customers see one brand even when the retailer uses many systems.

They may expect the retailer to understand purchases, returns, loyalty activity, support interactions, and preferences regardless of where the original transaction happened.

Returns and Exchanges

Returns become more complicated as channels multiply. Retailers may need to manage situations such as:

Buy online → Return in store

Marketplace purchase → Refund

Store purchase → Exchange through another location

The platform should make these workflows easier to reconcile.

International Commerce

International expansion can introduce:

• Currencies
• Languages
• Regional pricing
• Taxes
• Duties
• Local payment methods
• Localized storefronts
• Different inventory pools

Retailers should consider whether the platform can support these requirements as the business grows.

Automation

More channels usually mean more repetitive decisions.

Automation can help with:

• Order routing
• Inventory updates
• Warehouse allocation
• Carrier selection
• Order tagging
• Shipping workflows
• Notifications
• Returns
• Listing updates

The objective is to add sales channels without adding the same amount of manual work.

1. Shopify: Best for Ecommerce-Led Omnichannel Retail

Overview

Shopify combines ecommerce, social selling, marketplaces, inventory, payments, international commerce, and optional physical retail through Shopify POS.

Its broad ecosystem makes it particularly relevant to online-first retailers that want to expand across additional channels without replacing their core commerce platform immediately.

Key Featureshttps://www.shopify.com/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

• Online storefront
• Marketplace selling
• Social commerce
• Inventory management
• Multiple inventory locations
• Shopify Markets
• Shopify Payments
• POS integration
• Customer management
• App ecosystem
• Fulfillment integrations

Pricing

Shopify offers several paid plans, with costs increasing according to staff, reporting, commerce requirements, and additional features. Advanced POS functionality and some apps may require separate subscriptions.

Example Use Case

A beauty retailer begins with a Shopify website and later adds Instagram selling, marketplaces, international customers, and occasional pop-up stores. Shopify can remain the central commerce platform while additional channels are added around it.

Best For

Online-first retailers wanting a relatively approachable path into omnichannel commerce.

Strengths

Shopify provides a strong balance of ecommerce, marketplace selling, social commerce, payments, international selling, POS, and integrations.

Limitations

Retailers with highly complex warehousing, advanced OMS requirements, enterprise ERP needs, or deeply customized commerce architecture may eventually require specialist systems alongside Shopify.

2. BigCommerce: Best for Flexible Multichannel Ecommerce

Overview

BigCommerce provides SaaS ecommerce functionality with strong marketplace, integration, and multi-storefront capabilities.

It is particularly relevant to retailers that want a flexible commerce platform while retaining more choice around payments, integrations, and storefront architecture.

Key Features

• Ecommerce storefronts
• Amazon integration
• eBay integration
• Walmart integration
• Multi-storefront
• POS connections
• Marketplace selling
• International commerce capabilities
• APIs
• Feed management
• Advertising-channel integrations

Pricing

BigCommerce offers several paid plans, with higher tiers supporting greater sales volume, additional storefronts, and more advanced functionality.

Businesses should also evaluate payment-provider and transaction-related costs.

Example Use Case

A retailer operates a primary ecommerce site, a regional storefront, and a separate B2B storefront while also selling on Amazon and Walmart. BigCommerce can help manage several storefront and marketplace requirements within the same broader commerce environment.

Best For

Growing online retailers that want flexible SaaS ecommerce and multichannel connectivity.

Strengths

BigCommerce offers strong marketplace support, multi-storefront functionality, APIs, and flexibility around integrations.

Limitations

As sales volume and requirements increase, retailers should carefully evaluate plan thresholds, payment costs, and the need for additional operational software.

3. Linnworks: Best for Marketplace Inventory and Order Management

Overview

Linnworks focuses on the operational side of multichannel commerce rather than acting primarily as the customer-facing storefront. Its core strengths are centralized inventory, order management, marketplace connectivity, fulfillment, and automation.

Key Features

• Centralized order management
• Inventory synchronization
• Marketplace integrations
• Warehouse management
• Listing management
• Shipping integrations
• Order routing
• Rules-based automation
• Multi-channel inventory
• Fulfillment workflows

Pricing

Linnworks uses customized pricing based on factors such as monthly order volume, functionality, and optional modules.

Example Use Case

A retailer sells through Shopify, Amazon, Walmart, eBay, and TikTok Shop. Instead of managing five separate order queues and stock balances, Linnworks can bring order activity into one operational environment and synchronize inventory across connected channels.

Best For

Online retailers heavily dependent on marketplaces and struggling with order, inventory, and fulfillment complexity.

Strengths

Linnworks provides strong centralized order management, marketplace connectivity, stock synchronization, and operational automation.

Limitations

It does not replace the customer-facing ecommerce storefront, so businesses normally use it alongside a platform such as Shopify or BigCommerce.

4. Universell Platform: Best for Omnichannel Retail Connected With Broader Business Operations

Overview

Universell takes a broader operational approach to commerce. Rather than focusing only on the ecommerce storefront or marketplace layer, it connects retail and commerce functionality with CRM, inventory, payments, sales, marketing, customer management, reporting, and other business tools. This can be useful when the retailer’s challenge extends beyond channel connectivity into broader operational fragmentation.

Key Features

• Ecommerce tools
• Inventory management
• CRM
• Customer management
• Payments
• Sales management
• Marketing
• Loyalty and rewards
• Reporting
• Automation
• Order-related workflows
• Broader business-management functionality

Pricing

Retailers should check directly with Universell for current pricing, ecommerce capabilities, locations, users, integrations, and plan availability.

Example Use Case

An online retailer sells products through several customer channels but also manages CRM, payments, inventory, loyalty, marketing, and reporting using separate applications. A broader platform can help keep more of those functions within the same business environment instead of adding another isolated commerce system.

Best For

Retailers that want omnichannel commerce and customer activity connected with broader business operations.

Strengths

Universell’s main advantage is operational consolidation across customer, sales, inventory, payment, marketing, and business-management workflows.

Limitations

Retailers requiring highly sophisticated marketplace orchestration, enterprise OMS functionality, advanced warehouse automation, or composable commerce architecture may prefer more specialized platforms.

5. Brightpearl: Best for Omnichannel Retail Operations

Overview

Brightpearl by Sage focuses on the operational layer behind ecommerce and retail channels.

It becomes particularly relevant when the storefront is working well but inventory, purchasing, orders, warehousing, suppliers, fulfillment, and reporting are becoming more difficult to manage.

Key Features

• Inventory management
• Order management
• Multi-channel synchronization
• Purchasing
• Warehousing
• Demand planning
• Automation
• Supplier management
• Retail reporting
• Accounting-related workflows
• Commerce integrations

Pricing

Brightpearl uses customized pricing based on the retailer’s requirements and operational setup.

Example Use Case

A successful ecommerce retailer already uses Shopify but now operates three warehouses, wholesale sales, multiple marketplaces, numerous suppliers, and increasingly complicated replenishment workflows.

Brightpearl can sit behind the storefront and manage more of the operational complexity.

Best For

Growing online retailers that need stronger back-office retail operations behind existing storefronts.

Strengths

Brightpearl provides strong inventory, order, purchasing, automation, and multi-channel retail operations capabilities.

Limitations

Very small retailers may not need the additional operational depth, implementation effort, or cost.

6. Adobe Commerce: Best for Highly Customized Commerce

Overview

Adobe Commerce is designed for retailers requiring significant flexibility across storefronts, catalogs, pricing, customer groups, B2B, B2C, international commerce, and custom integrations.

It sits much further toward the enterprise end of the commerce market.

Key Features

• Multiple storefronts
• Complex catalogs
• B2B and B2C commerce
• Customer-specific pricing
• Promotions
• Multi-brand support
• International commerce
• Product management
• APIs and integrations
• Custom checkout
• Enterprise merchandising

Pricing

Adobe Commerce uses custom pricing based on deployment type, business requirements, scale, and implementation.

Example Use Case

A retailer operates five brands across twelve countries with different catalogs, currencies, customer groups, B2B pricing, and fulfillment partners.

Adobe Commerce provides the flexibility to build more complex commerce environments around those requirements.

Best For

Larger retailers requiring customized multi-brand, multi-market, or B2B/B2C commerce.

Strengths

Adobe Commerce provides extensive configurability across catalogs, pricing, storefronts, customer groups, and integrations.

Limitations

Implementation, development, maintenance, and ongoing technical requirements can be significantly higher than SaaS platforms such as Shopify or BigCommerce.

7. Salesforce Commerce Cloud: Best for Salesforce-Centered Retail Ecosystems

Overview

Salesforce Commerce Cloud becomes particularly relevant when ecommerce is part of a broader Salesforce environment.

Retailers may already use Salesforce for CRM, service, marketing, loyalty, customer data, and analytics, allowing commerce activity to remain closer to those systems.

Key Features

• B2C commerce
• Ecommerce storefronts
• Order management
• Omnichannel inventory
• Distributed fulfillment
• Customer-data integration
• Salesforce CRM integration
• Service integration
• Marketing integration
• Personalization
• Enterprise analytics

Pricing

Salesforce Commerce Cloud and related order-management products generally use customized enterprise pricing.

Example Use Case

A retailer already uses Salesforce for CRM, customer service, loyalty, and marketing.

A customer browses online, purchases a product, contacts customer service, returns it, and later participates in a loyalty campaign.

Commerce Cloud can help keep the purchase closer to the broader Salesforce customer environment.

Best For

Larger retailers already heavily invested in Salesforce.

Strengths

Salesforce Commerce Cloud can integrate commerce with a broad enterprise customer, service, marketing, and loyalty ecosystem.

Limitations

The platform can be expensive and implementation-heavy for retailers that primarily need straightforward ecommerce and marketplace selling.

8. commercetools: Best for Composable Omnichannel Commerce

Overview

commercetools takes a composable approach rather than providing one tightly packaged ecommerce application.

Retailers can combine specialized technologies for storefronts, search, content, payments, personalization, OMS, and other commerce functions around a flexible API-driven foundation.

Key Features

• Headless commerce
• APIs
• Multiple storefronts
• Multiple catalogs
• Channel management
• Cart and checkout
• Order management
• Payment integrations
• Custom commerce workflows
• Modular architecture
• International commerce support

Pricing

commercetools uses customized pricing based on business requirements and commerce usage.

Example Use Case

A technically sophisticated retailer wants a custom mobile app, separate CMS, specialist search engine, regional payment providers, different fulfillment systems, and multiple brand storefronts.

commercetools allows the retailer’s technology team to assemble these components around a composable commerce architecture.

Best For

Large or technically sophisticated retailers building custom composable commerce ecosystems.

Strengths

commercetools provides significant architectural flexibility and allows retailers to select specialized technologies for different parts of the commerce stack.

Limitations

Composable commerce requires greater technical expertise, integration work, development resources, and architectural planning than packaged platforms.

The Real Omnichannel Problem

Adding another sales channel is relatively easy.

Managing everything that happens after the channel is added is much harder.

A new marketplace can create:

Another order queue
Another inventory feed
Another listing structure
Another return workflow
Another set of customer expectations
Another fulfillment requirement

The objective should therefore be:

More channels without proportional increases in operational complexity.

Multichannel vs. Omnichannel Retail

These terms are related but not identical.

Multichannel

A retailer sells through several channels:

Website
Amazon
Store
TikTok Shop

However, those channels may still operate independently.

Omnichannel

An omnichannel retailer attempts to connect:

Website + Marketplaces + Stores + Inventory + Orders + Customers + Fulfillment

The important difference is integration.

A retailer can sell through many channels while still operating a fragmented multichannel business.

The Inventory Problem

Suppose a retailer has 100 units of Product A.

It sells:

20 on Amazon
15 through its website
10 on Walmart
5 through TikTok Shop

Total sold:

50

Actual inventory:

50

If each channel maintains its own outdated stock count, the business may have several conflicting versions of available inventory.

Centralized synchronization reduces that problem.

The Order Management Problem

Suppose a retailer receives:

• 200 website orders
• 120 Amazon orders
• 80 Walmart orders
• 30 TikTok orders
• 20 eBay orders

Total:

450 orders

Without centralized order management, employees may need to monitor five different systems.

A connected order-management environment can turn those orders into a more manageable operational queue and automate decisions around fulfillment, inventory, carriers, priority, and returns.

Ecommerce Platform vs. Omnichannel Operations Platform

This is why growing retailers sometimes combine systems.

For example:

Shopify + Linnworks

or

Shopify + Brightpearl

The ecommerce platform manages the customer-facing experience. The operations platform manages what happens behind it.

Which Omnichannel Retail Software Should You Choose?

Consider Shopify if you want ecommerce, marketplaces, social commerce, international selling, inventory, payments, and POS within a relatively approachable ecosystem.

Consider BigCommerce if you want flexible SaaS ecommerce with marketplace support and more openness around infrastructure.

Consider Linnworks if marketplace inventory, orders, warehouses, and fulfillment are becoming difficult to coordinate.

Consider Universell Platform if you want ecommerce and channel activity connected with CRM, payments, inventory, sales, marketing, loyalty, reporting, and broader business operations.

Consider Brightpearl if your storefront works well but your back-office retail operations have become the main bottleneck.

Consider Adobe Commerce if you operate complex brands, regions, catalogs, B2B/B2C models, and custom commerce experiences.

Consider Salesforce Commerce Cloud if Salesforce already plays a major role across CRM, service, marketing, customer data, and loyalty.

Consider commercetools if your technology team wants to build a flexible composable commerce architecture.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best omnichannel retail software for online retailers?

There is no single best platform for every online retailer. Shopify offers a relatively accessible commerce ecosystem, while BigCommerce provides additional SaaS flexibility. Linnworks focuses more heavily on marketplace inventory and order orchestration. Universell connects commerce with broader business operations, while Brightpearl focuses on retail operations behind the storefront. Adobe Commerce, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, and commercetools are more relevant as requirements become increasingly complex and enterprise-oriented.

Where does Universell fit compared with dedicated omnichannel platforms?

Universell takes a broader business-operations approach. Platforms such as Linnworks and Brightpearl provide deeper specialization in areas such as order orchestration, marketplace operations, and retail back-office management. Shopify and BigCommerce provide stronger dedicated ecommerce ecosystems.

Universell becomes more relevant when the retailer wants commerce activity connected with CRM, inventory, payments, marketing, loyalty, sales, and other operational functions.

What is omnichannel retail software?

Omnichannel retail software helps businesses coordinate commerce across multiple customer and operational channels. These can include websites, mobile apps, marketplaces, social platforms, physical stores, warehouses, international storefronts, and B2B portals.

What is the difference between multichannel and omnichannel?

Multichannel means selling through several channels. Omnichannel means attempting to connect those channels through shared inventory, order, customer, product, and fulfillment information.

Does Shopify support omnichannel retail?

Shopify supports ecommerce, social and marketplace selling, inventory management, international commerce, payments, and physical retail through Shopify POS. Larger retailers may still need additional OMS, ERP, WMS, or inventory systems.

What is the best software for selling on multiple marketplaces?

Linnworks is particularly relevant when marketplace order and inventory management are the primary problems. Other retailers may use Shopify or BigCommerce for marketplace connectivity while adding specialist operational systems as complexity grows.

Do online retailers need an OMS?

Not every retailer does. A dedicated Order Management System becomes more useful as retailers add multiple marketplaces, warehouses, stores, 3PLs, dropshipping, split fulfillment, and larger order volumes.

Can omnichannel software prevent overselling?

It can reduce the risk by synchronizing inventory across connected channels. However, correct physical inventory, reliable integrations, and accurate warehouse procedures remain necessary.

When should retailers consider enterprise commerce software?

Enterprise systems become more relevant when requirements include multiple brands, many countries, complex catalogs, B2B and B2C, custom checkout, advanced pricing, large development teams, deep ERP integrations, and sophisticated fulfillment.

Your Next Step

Start by identifying where channel growth is creating the most operational complexity. If ecommerce and channel expansion are the main priorities, compare Shopify and BigCommerce. If marketplace inventory and orders have become difficult to manage, evaluate Linnworks. If the back office is the bigger challenge, consider Brightpearl.

If you want ecommerce activity connected with CRM, payments, inventory, sales, marketing, loyalty, and other business operations, include Universell Platform in your evaluation.

For complex enterprise commerce, Adobe Commerce and Salesforce Commerce Cloud deserve consideration, while commercetools is better suited to retailers building composable architectures.

The right omnichannel platform is not simply the one that lets you sell in most places. It is the one that helps you add channels without adding the same amount of operational complexity.

By Katya Z. | Marketing Manager
Business technology, AI, marketing & e-commerce