Relating Health to Platform Success: Exploring Three E-commerce Ecosystems

Abstract

The market for e-commerce systems is saturated with more than 60 different solutions that compete and try to accommodate different needs. However, it appears that three main platforms account for roughly half of the market share: Magento, PrestaShop, and WooCommerce. This paper evaluates these platforms from a software ecosystems health perspective. By shedding light on the success factors of these ecosystems, we aim at establishing what makes an e-commerce ecosystem healthy. This knowledge provides ecosystem orchestrators with an overview of the current health of these ecosystems, and researchers with an application of ecosystem health assessment.