What are the benefits of Microsoft Commerce Server?

Question

What are the benefits of using Microsoft Commerce Server as opposed to some other 3rd party shopping cart system? Is it really that more "robust" than other .NET solutions - ASP.NET storefront, DotNetCart, VevoCart? At what point would you start looking at Commerce Server as an ecommerce solution rather than one of these other solutions? Or, are they all comparable? It looks like Commerce Server is more suited to cases where you're running multiple storefronts or just in terms of large scaling, but I don't know if that's necessarily true.

Answer 1

Microsoft Commerce Server (CS) is a framework (collection of e-commerce specific APIs) to build an e-commerce site around. CS is scalable, and runs on top of Windows Server and SQL Server. Additional Commerce Servers can be added to the cluster if needed. In addition, CS provides business tools in the flavour of Microsoft office - this allows business users to modify orders, user profiles, advertisements, discounts remotely.

The other .NET solutions are turn-key e-commerce solutions that essentially require re-branding.