Ecommerce for CPG and Consumer Goods in Mexico with Adobe Commerce

Mexico's CPG sector faces a digital reckoning — the traditional channel is no longer enough

Mexico's consumer packaged goods (CPG) market runs on a distribution infrastructure that has been refined over decades: regional wholesalers, supermarket chains, convenience store networks, and the vast universe of nearly one million neighborhood "tienditas" that make up the traditional channel. For a long time, that system was enough. Today, it is being reshaped by digital pressure from two directions simultaneously.

On the consumer side, shoppers now purchase groceries, bottled water, and personal care products online with expectations of same-day or next-day delivery. The Asociación Mexicana de Venta Online (AMVO) tracks the sustained growth of digital commerce in Mexico year over year: food and beverage categories are consistently among the fastest-growing in ecommerce, driven by express delivery platforms and smartphone penetration that exceeds 80% among connected adults (INEGI, Endutih 2024).

On the distribution side, the wholesalers and regional distributors — the critical link between the factory and the point of sale — are demanding digital self-service tools. The phone-call-to-sales-rep model no longer scales at the pace the market requires. Distributors want real-time catalogs, live credit balance visibility, instant order confirmation, and automated electronic invoicing without manual back-and-forth.

For a Mexican CPG brand — a bottled water company, a snack manufacturer, a dairy producer, a personal care brand — this creates simultaneous pressure on two fronts:

1. D2C (direct-to-consumer): building a direct relationship with the end consumer, capturing first-party data, and delivering experiences the indirect channel cannot replicate.
2. B2B distributor portal: digitalizing the order cycle across the distribution network to reduce operational cost, eliminate transcription errors, and free the sales force from repetitive administrative tasks.

Both models require enterprise-grade ecommerce technology. Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento) is the platform that, in our experience at WolfSellers, has demonstrated the strongest capability to handle the specific demands of Mexico's CPG sector: catalogs spanning thousands of SKUs with regional variants, differentiated pricing by channel, robust ERP integration with SAP and Oracle, and real geographic personalization.

This article explains in detail how CPG brands in Mexico are building their ecommerce operations with Adobe Commerce, what data architecture they require, how the platform integrates with Adobe Real-Time CDP and Marketo Engage, and what brands should evaluate before launching the project.

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The specific challenges of ecommerce for the CPG sector

Not all ecommerce is the same. Fashion retail has its own constraints; consumer electronics has different ones. CPG carries a combination of technical and commercial challenges that distinguish it from other verticals and that demand a platform explicitly designed to handle scale, pricing complexity, and multi-channel distribution.

Challenge	Consequence if unresolved	How Adobe Commerce addresses it
Catalogs with thousands of SKUs and regional variants	Availability errors, outdated catalogs by zone	Enterprise catalog management with configurable attribute sets, multi-store per region, and real-time ERP sync via API
Differentiated pricing by channel and customer	D2C channel undercutting the distributor channel; commercial conflicts	Shared catalogs in the B2B module: price lists by customer group (B2C, wholesaler, authorized distributor) with volume and channel discount rules
Distributor network demanding digital self-service	Dependency on sales reps for routine orders; high operational cost per transaction	Native B2B module: company accounts, assigned catalogs, credit limits, purchase orders, and requisition lists
ERP integration (SAP, Oracle)	Stale prices and inventory; duplicate order entry and transcription errors	Native connectors and API-first architecture for bidirectional sync: inventory, pricing, order status, invoices
Regional personalization (Mexico City, Monterrey, Guadalajara)	Irrelevant messaging and products by geography; low conversion	Geolocation-based segmentation, dynamic content by region via Page Builder and Adobe Real-Time CDP
Scalability for peak seasons (Christmas, year-end)	Site crashes or inventory errors at peak demand moments	Adobe Commerce Cloud with auto-scaling; headless architecture to decouple the frontend from the catalog backend
Distributor credit management	Orders blocked or incorrectly approved; operational friction for the credit team	ERP integration for real-time credit balance display inside the B2B portal, with order blocking rules
Electronic invoicing (CFDI 4.0 in Mexico)	Dual process: order in ecommerce, invoice created outside the system, delays in distributor accounts payable	Integration with a PAC (Proveedor Autorizado de Certificación) for automatic CFDI 4.0 generation from the B2B checkout

Each one of these challenges, left unresolved in the implementation, creates operational or commercial friction that can negate the return on investment of the entire ecommerce project. Adobe Commerce's core advantage is that it was built from the ground up as an enterprise platform — most of these solutions are native features, not forced customizations on a platform not designed for this level of complexity.

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Two ecommerce models for CPG brands: D2C and the distributor portal

CPG brands in Mexico typically need to implement two distinct ecommerce models, either simultaneously or in sequence. While they share the same underlying platform, they serve different audiences, serve different business objectives, and require different purchase flows.

Model 1: D2C — the brand's direct store

The D2C (direct-to-consumer) model is the channel where the brand sells directly to the end consumer with no intermediary. In Mexico, this model has gained significant traction in categories of recurring consumption:

• Water and beverages: subscription for five-gallon jugs or hydration packs with scheduled home delivery.
• Snacks and functional foods: exclusive packs, sizes, or formats not available in supermarkets.
• Personal care and household: subscription for regularly used products (detergent, toilet paper, oral hygiene).
• Dairy and refrigerated products: in metropolitan areas with cold-chain logistics available.

D2C does not compete with supermarket retail on price — it differentiates on exclusivity, personalization, subscription convenience, and direct brand relationship. Retail moves volume; D2C builds relationships and captures data.

What a CPG D2C store requires in Adobe Commerce:

• A curated catalog: a selected subset of the full portfolio, not the thousands of SKUs in the B2B catalog.
• Conversion-optimized checkout for mobile: Apple Pay, Google Pay, SPEI, card — zero friction. More than 70% of ecommerce traffic in Mexico originates from smartphones (Statista, 2025).
• Subscription engine: recurring orders with simple modification, pause, or cancellation options accessible from the consumer's account area.
• Configurable bundles and kits: gift packs for seasonal occasions, custom flavor combinations, family-size bundles.
• Integrated loyalty program: purchase points, cashback, early access to product launches.
• Impeccable mobile performance: Core Web Vitals optimization matters both for user experience and Google search ranking.

Adobe Commerce, with its native subscription module and direct integration with Adobe Real-Time CDP, enables brands to build this channel with deep personalization based on purchase history and consumer behavioral data.

Model 2: B2B distributor portal

This is, in many cases, the model with the highest immediate financial impact for a Mexican CPG brand. The reason is straightforward: the order volume flowing through B2B channels — regional wholesalers, authorized distributors, convenience store supply chains — can be ten to one hundred times greater than D2C volume in the early stages of digitalization.

Before the digital portal, the typical order cycle looked like this: phone call to sales rep → manual quotation → order entry in SAP → email confirmation → invoice issued the next day. Each cycle took 24 to 48 hours and depended on specific people being available during business hours.

A B2B portal built on Adobe Commerce transforms that cycle into a self-service flow:

1. The distributor logs into the portal with their business credentials.
2. They access the catalog assigned to their account — not all distributors see all SKUs.
3. They view their current price, pulled in real time from the ERP.
4. They check their available credit balance before confirming the order.
5. They submit the order with their internal purchase order number.
6. They receive automatic confirmation and an order number.
7. The order enters the ERP directly with no manual re-entry.
8. A CFDI 4.0 electronic invoice is generated automatically and delivered to their registered email.

The result: order cycles that move from 24–48 hours to under 10 minutes, with zero transcription error risk.

Key features of Adobe Commerce's B2B module for CPG:

• Hierarchical company accounts: a distributor company can have multiple buyer users with different roles and authorization limits (junior buyer, purchasing supervisor, account manager).
• Requisition lists: the distributor saves their routine orders and executes them in one click without rebuilding the cart from scratch each time.
• Quick Order: bulk SKU entry or CSV upload for rapid replenishment of large assortments.
• Shared catalogs: each distributor segment sees exactly the products and prices that correspond to their commercial agreement.
• Account credit: ERP integration displays available credit balance and blocks orders that exceed the credit limit, without manual intervention from the credit team.
• Negotiable quotes: the distributor can request a special quote for extraordinary volumes; the commercial team negotiates inside the system and the distributor converts it to an order in one click.

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How Adobe Commerce resolves the technical challenges of CPG at scale

Managing large catalogs with regional variants

A large CPG brand in Mexico can have between 2,000 and 15,000 active SKUs, with variants for flavor, size, packaging format, and regional availability. Adobe Commerce handles this with:

• Custom attribute sets by product category: each product type (water, snack, functional beverage, hygiene) has its own relevant attribute set without polluting the global catalog structure.
• Configurable products with individual variants: a single "base product" (for example, sparkling natural water) has presentation variants (600 ml, 1 L, 2 L, 24-unit case) as simple products within a configurable, each with its own inventory and price.
• Multi-Source Inventory (MSI): Adobe Commerce connects multiple regional warehouses (Mexico City, Monterrey, Guadalajara, Puebla) and displays real availability from the source closest to the distributor's delivery address. This is critical for CPG, where distribution is regional and lead times vary significantly by zone.
• Tier pricing by volume: volume discounts configurable per SKU, per customer group, and per channel. The wholesaler ordering 500 cases sees a different price than one ordering 50 — and both see a different price than the D2C consumer.

Differentiated pricing by channel: the commercial-technical challenge

In CPG, the price to the end consumer, the regional distributor, and the wholesaler are radically different — and all must be accurate in real time. A pricing error visible to a distributor can generate an invalid order, a commercial dispute, or a significant margin loss.

Adobe Commerce resolves this with shared catalogs in the B2B module: each customer segment is assigned a catalog with the prices corresponding to their commercial agreement. ERP integration automatically updates those prices when commercial policy changes — without requiring manual intervention from the digital team on each update cycle.

ERP integration: the backbone of the CPG ecommerce project

The integration between Adobe Commerce and the ERP is not an implementation detail — it is the most critical component of the entire project. The data flowing between the two systems in real time includes:

From ERP to Adobe Commerce:

• Current prices by SKU and by customer group.
• Available inventory by warehouse or distribution center.
• Credit balance by distributor account.
• Status of previous orders and invoices.
• Customer master data (tax ID, payment terms, assigned sales zone).

From Adobe Commerce to ERP:

• New orders (B2B purchase orders and D2C consumer orders) for fulfillment processing.
• Customer data updates for master record synchronization.
• Payment confirmations for accounts receivable processes.

At WolfSellers we have implemented these integrations with SAP S/4HANA, SAP ECC, and Oracle ERP Cloud. The most robust pattern for CPG is an integration middleware — MuleSoft, Boomi, or an equivalent iPaaS platform — acting as an orchestration layer between Adobe Commerce and the ERP. This handles latency, sync errors, and data transformations without tightly coupling the two systems. The decoupling matters: when the ERP has a maintenance window, the ecommerce portal should not go down with it.

Regional content personalization

CPG brands are not uniform across Mexico's regions: Monterrey shows different consumption patterns for functional beverages than the southeast; Mexico City has different premium category penetration than Guadalajara; the Bajío region has its own retail dynamics. Adobe Commerce, with its native Page Builder and integration with Adobe Real-Time CDP, enables:

• Displaying different banners and promotions based on the distributor's or consumer's region.
• Activating seasonal landing pages (Christmas, Día de Muertos, back-to-school) by geographic zone.
• Personalizing the featured product order on the homepage based on each visitor's purchase history.
• Applying region-specific pricing rules or product availability without duplicating the catalog.

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Data architecture for CPG: from ERP to the distributor's screen and the consumer's device

Understanding the data architecture of a CPG ecommerce project built on Adobe Commerce is clearest when viewed as three interconnected layers.

Layer 1: Master data sources

The ERP (SAP, Oracle) is the source of truth for pricing, inventory, credit, and orders. The PIM (Product Information Management) — which can be Adobe Commerce itself or a dedicated external system like Akeneo — is the source of truth for product data: descriptions, images, specifications, regulatory attributes, and nutritional information.

The synchronization between ERP and Adobe Commerce must be designed with two distinct frequencies:

• Real-time or near-real-time: prices, available inventory, and credit balances — data that changes throughout the day and, if outdated, generates errors in the purchase process.
• Nightly batch: closed invoices, complete order history, account statistics — historical data that does not require low latency.

Layer 2: Adobe Commerce as the commerce experience layer

Adobe Commerce receives master data and serves it differently based on the authenticated user type:

• An anonymous visitor on the D2C site sees the public catalog with list prices and general brand messaging.
• An authenticated distributor sees their assigned catalog, their negotiated prices, and their real-time credit balance.
• An internal administrator can see the complete catalog, impersonate a distributor account for support purposes, and access sales reporting dashboards across channels.

The frontend can be Adobe Commerce's native theme (Hyva for superior performance) or a headless architecture where the frontend is a React or Next.js application consuming data through Adobe Commerce's GraphQL API. For CPG brands with high mobile traffic, advanced personalization requirements, or a strongly differentiated brand experience, headless allows the frontend and backend development cycles to move independently.

Layer 3: Adobe Experience Platform as the intelligence layer

When the brand connects Adobe Commerce with Adobe Experience Platform (AEP) and Adobe Real-Time CDP, behavioral data from ecommerce — which products are viewed, what is added to cart, what is abandoned, what is purchased at what frequency — is enriched with data from other channels (CRM, call center, mobile app, physical point of sale) to build unified, actionable customer profiles in real time.

This layer transforms the ecommerce platform from a transactional channel into a first-party data asset. In an environment where third-party cookie-based advertising is declining and brands need to build direct consumer relationships, this infrastructure is increasingly a competitive differentiator, not just a technical feature.

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Adobe Real-Time CDP and Marketo Engage for CPG: personalization and loyalty at scale

Real-Time CDP: the unified profile for both distributors and consumers

Adobe Real-Time CDP connects all of the brand's data sources — ecommerce, ERP, CRM, mobile app, surveys — into a single, actionable profile for each customer or distributor. For CPG, this enables concrete use cases across both channels:

For the D2C channel:

• Segment consumers by recency, frequency, and monetary value (RFM) and activate differentiated Marketo campaigns per segment.
• Identify consumers at risk of churn — no purchase in 45 days in a recurrent consumption category — and trigger an automated reactivation offer before the relationship breaks.
• Recognize high-value consumers and offer them early access to new product launches or limited editions.
• Build lookalike audiences from top customers for acquisition campaigns on social media and Google Ads.

For the B2B channel:

• Detect distributors with week-over-week declining order patterns and automatically alert the assigned sales representative.
• Segment distributors by region, primary product category, and volume tier for differentiated commercial activations.
• Measure the actual impact of Marketo campaigns on order behavior inside the B2B portal — closing the loop between marketing investment and sales outcomes.

Marketo Engage: lifecycle automation for distributors and consumers

Adobe Marketo Engage is the automation engine that activates the audiences built in Real-Time CDP. For CPG brands in Mexico, the highest-impact automation flows are:

1. New distributor onboarding: welcome email sequence, B2B portal tutorials, scheduled introductory call with the assigned sales representative — all orchestrated without manual intervention.
2. Predictive replenishment alerts: automatic notification to the distributor when, based on their historical order pattern, they are approaching stock-out on their highest-velocity SKUs.
3. Segmented seasonal campaigns: Christmas, back-to-school, or Día de Muertos promotions differentiated by region and distributor type, with personalized landing pages inside the portal.
4. Win-back for inactive distributors: automated flow for distributors who have not placed an order in 30 or more days, with a progressively escalating incentive offer.
5. Post-purchase upsell and cross-sell in D2C: product recommendations delivered by email or push notification, based on the consumer's Real-Time CDP profile and purchase history.
6. Lead scoring for new distributors: automatically qualify potential distributors who visit the portal and complete a registration form, prioritizing the highest-potential accounts for the commercial team.

The combination of Adobe Commerce + Real-Time CDP + Marketo Engage is the architecture that converts a CPG ecommerce operation into a continuous growth system — not merely an additional sales channel.

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The CPG D2C model in Mexico: the Bonafont experience and its lessons

Bonafont, Danone's bottled water brand in Mexico, is one of the most representative cases of D2C digitalization in the Mexican CPG sector. Their challenge was emblematic of the sector: a massive distribution network built over decades of traditional channel operation, consumers accustomed to the subscription model for home-delivered water jugs, and the need to digitalize that process to reduce friction, improve retention, and capture direct consumer data.

The strategy was to build a D2C digital channel that allowed consumers to manage their subscription directly — changing delivery frequency, modifying the format (20L versus 10L), pausing or reactivating — through a digital interface rather than a phone call to the delivery driver or a call center agent. The result was a channel that improved customer satisfaction, reduced the cost per service interaction, and generated first-party data on consumption patterns that the indirect channel had never been able to provide.

At WolfSellers we have worked with consumer goods brands facing variations of this same challenge, and three lessons repeat consistently across these projects:

Lesson 1: The D2C channel in CPG is the most valuable data asset a brand can build. Every direct order generates information about preferences, frequency, price elasticity, and geographic behavior that the indirect channel never delivers. This data is the input for personalization, loyalty programs, and portfolio optimization.

Lesson 2: Catalog simplification is the first strategic design decision. Not all SKUs in the portfolio belong in the D2C store. The selection should be oriented toward products where the direct relationship adds differential value — exclusives, the highest-recurrence items, products with a brand story worth telling directly.

Lesson 3: Subscription is the most efficient retention mechanism for CPG in recurring consumption categories. Water, healthy snacks, personal care products, supplements: in categories where consumption is regular and predictable, subscription multiplies customer lifetime value (LTV) and reduces the effective cost of acquisition per order over time. Adobe Commerce's native subscription module, combined with Marketo Engage for lifecycle communication, creates a retention loop that compounds over time.

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Readiness checklist: is your CPG brand ready for ecommerce with Adobe Commerce?

Before starting the project, these are the questions we ask every CPG prospect at WolfSellers to calibrate the scope, complexity level, and the correct sequence of project phases:

1. Do you have a clean, structured product master? If the catalog lives in spreadsheets with data inconsistencies, duplicate SKUs, or missing attributes, the first project is PIM remediation — not ecommerce. Building on dirty data guarantees a failed implementation.
2. Does the ERP have available APIs or connectors for real-time sync? SAP S/4HANA and Oracle Cloud have mature, documented connectors. Older SAP ECC instances or proprietary ERP systems require batch integration or a middleware orchestration layer.
3. Have you defined the pricing policy by channel? Ecommerce forces you to formalize what may today be informal — discounts at the sales rep's discretion, undocumented exceptions. This is a commercial governance exercise, not just a technical one.
4. Who will own the ecommerce channel internally? Marketing, Sales, or IT? Without a clearly defined owner with budget authority and decision-making power, the project loses momentum after go-live. Ecommerce is not a one-time project: it is a channel that requires ongoing operation and investment.
5. Have you defined the assortment strategy by channel? Which products go to D2C, which to the distributor portal, which to both? This decision has implications for logistics, pricing structure, and the relationship with the indirect channel.
6. Do you have last-mile logistics capacity for D2C? Last-mile delivery is the most common bottleneck in CPG D2C. Do you work with a 3PL that has an integration API for real-time tracking? Do you have proprietary fleet with metropolitan coverage?
7. Do you have web-resolution product photography for all priority SKUs? A catalog without images does not convert. This asset is consistently the most underestimated in project planning and frequently the one that delays go-live the most.
8. What is the digital maturity level of your distributors? Some regional distributors have teams with high digital tool adoption; others will require training and active support through the transition. The change management plan is part of the project scope.
9. Do you have a communication strategy for the channel change with your sales force? Migrating orders from phone to a self-service portal can generate resistance from sales reps who perceive self-service as a threat to their role. The correct design refocuses the sales team on higher-value activities — new account development, commercial negotiation, advisory — and frees them from administrative order-taking.
10. Do you have budget for the first year of operation, not only for development? Ecommerce requires continuous post-launch investment: conversion optimization, digital merchandising, activation campaigns, technical maintenance, and support. Projects that budget only for development typically stall within six months of launch.

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Frequently asked questions about CPG ecommerce with Adobe Commerce

How long does it take to implement a B2B distributor portal with ERP integration?

A B2B distributor portal with basic ERP integration — real-time prices and inventory, shared catalogs by customer group, company accounts, Quick Order functionality — takes between 4 and 6 months from project kick-off to go-live, assuming the ERP has available APIs and the product catalog is structured in a clean data source.

More complex projects — multiple regions with distinct pricing rules, real-time credit integration, automated CFDI 4.0 invoicing at checkout, simultaneous D2C portal — can take between 6 and 10 months.

The variable that most impacts the timeline is not Adobe Commerce technology: it is the availability and quality of master data on the brand's side (product, customer, pricing) and the response speed of the IT team managing the ERP for integrations. At WolfSellers, we address this variable starting in the discovery phase, auditing data quality before development begins.

Can Adobe Commerce handle catalogs with more than 5,000 SKUs without performance issues?

Yes, with the correct data architecture design and indexing engine configuration. Adobe Commerce was purpose-built as an enterprise platform and can handle catalogs of tens of thousands of SKUs. The key factors are:

• Designing attribute sets to avoid unnecessary global attributes that inflate the catalog index.
• Correctly configuring Full Page Cache and Varnish for the public frontend.
• Using Elasticsearch or OpenSearch — included in Adobe Commerce — for catalog search and filtering rather than the basic native search engine.
• In headless architectures, Adobe Commerce's GraphQL API serves large catalogs with response times appropriate for a fluid user experience.

We have implemented catalogs at this scale for CPG brands and production performance is suitable for the demands of an enterprise-level B2B or D2C portal.

How do you manage channel conflict with distributors when launching D2C?

This is the most frequently asked commercial question in CPG D2C projects, and the honest answer is that it requires a strategic decision from brand leadership before any technical solution. The most commonly implemented strategies we have seen work:

• D2C-exclusive SKUs: the direct channel sells packs, sizes, editions, or configurations that are not available in the indirect channel. Without direct price competition, the conflict disappears.
• D2C as an experience channel, not a minimum price channel: D2C offers convenience, personalization, and subscription, not the lowest price. Distributors maintain their margin in their channel.
• Channel compensation: when D2C delivers in an active distributor's territory, the distributor receives a commission on that sale, automatically recorded in the system.

Adobe Commerce can implement any of these strategies technically. The decision of which to apply is a business decision that must be made before the project begins.

Does Adobe Commerce integrate with Mexico's CFDI 4.0 electronic invoicing standard?

Yes, but it requires integration with a PAC (Proveedor Autorizado de Certificación) — an SAT-certified electronic invoicing provider such as Facturapi or equivalent. In B2B portal projects where electronic invoicing is a requirement for the distributor's accounting processes, this integration is critical and is implemented in the post-order flow: when the order is confirmed and payment is received, the system automatically generates the CFDI 4.0 with the distributor's fiscal data (RFC, CFDI usage, payment terms) and delivers it to their registered email.

In D2C projects where end consumers request an invoice, the standard flow is a post-purchase form where the consumer enters their RFC and fiscal data; the system generates the invoice on demand and delivers it by email. Both flows are implementable in Adobe Commerce with the appropriate connectors.

What distinguishes Adobe Commerce from other ecommerce platforms for the CPG sector?

The primary distinction is the depth of native functionality for enterprise B2B. Adobe Commerce's B2B module — hierarchical company accounts, shared catalogs, negotiable quotes, requisition lists, Quick Order, multi-level purchase order approval — is among the most complete in the market and covers the essential workflows of a distributor portal without third-party extensions for core processes.

The second distinction is the Adobe Experience Cloud ecosystem. The native integration with Adobe Real-Time CDP, Adobe Analytics, Adobe Target, and Adobe Marketo Engage allows a CPG brand to mature from a transactional ecommerce platform into a complete customer data and personalization engine without changing the technology stack. For brands that already have investment in Adobe Experience Cloud, Adobe Commerce is the natural extension toward the direct sales channel — and ecosystem coherence simplifies integrations and reduces long-term operational cost.

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Related Services

If this topic is relevant to your business, these WolfSellers services can help you implement it:

• Adobe Commerce B2B
• Adobe Commerce
• Real-Time CDP