At Zoho’s SMZ 2025 event, Zoho announced significant updates to its Zoho Commerce platform. I sat down with Prashant Ganti, Zoho’s Head of Product Management for Finance and Operations Suite, to discuss what these new features mean for small business owners.
From loyalty points and cart recovery to omnichannel selling and digital downloads, the updates aim to help small businesses sell more efficiently while reducing operational burdens. For entrepreneurs balancing tight resources and steep competition, these changes could prove transformative.
Why Ecommerce Innovation Matters for Small Businesses
I began by asking Ganti to walk through the new features and their practical benefits. Ganti framed Zoho Commerce within the broader landscape of online buying and selling.
“So thank you for having me here. So Zoho Commerce is the latest offering from the Zoho Finance Suite, Finance and Operations suite. So commerce right, if you take we all buy something online today. It’s par for the course. A lot of people purchase things online. So we want to make that experience. As seamless as possible. So that’s a continuous innovation investment that we make here. So this is the latest avatar of our commerce product.”
For small businesses, seamlessness is more than just convenience. Every added click, confusing checkout screen, or delay in shipping can mean lost revenue. That’s why Zoho Commerce now includes features like loyalty points, request-for-quote tools, and cart abandonment recovery—all designed to build stronger customer relationships while minimizing sales friction.
Reducing Checkout Abandonment and Building Loyalty
Ganti explained one of the main pain points Zoho sought to address: cart abandonment.
“We want businesses to have a more beautiful store. We want to reduce the chances of customers abandoning at checkout. So that maximize the chances of more sales. They want to build more, stickier relationship with customers. We have introduced features related to loyalty points and all those things.”
For small businesses, customer loyalty programs are often seen as tools only larger retailers can afford. By embedding this capability into Zoho Commerce, small business owners can now incentivize repeat sales without hiring a marketing team or purchasing an additional tool.
The platform also makes it easy to support customers who prefer a consultative sales process. “And then for customers who want to bit little bit more inquiry, we have request for court kind of a feature,” Ganti added.
The Complexity Behind a Simple Order
One of the biggest advantages Zoho Commerce offers is abstracting the complexity of ecommerce operations.
“If you take something like executing a simple online order, right, I mean I purchase something shoes online now. It’s very easy from a user point of view, but under the hood, we have abstracted a lot of complexities. There are 20-25 different subsystems that need to work in tandem to ensure that the single online order is executed successfully.”
He described how an order touches multiple subsystems: warehouse availability, invoicing, payment, tax calculation, and returns management. Most small businesses rely on multiple apps that don’t always talk to each other. That can lead to errors, delays, or customer dissatisfaction.
Zoho’s advantage is its unified stack. “We arguably among the very few companies globally that have built the entire stack. Including the payments part to ensure this gets successful executed, yeah,” Ganti said.
Fast ROI for Small Business Owners
I pressed further: what kind of “lift” can a small business expect from features like digital downloads, loyalty points, and cart recovery—especially without a marketing team?
Ganti was clear: “So one is this primarily a self-service model. So I think I mean as a small business, right, you don’t have too many resources to get all these done right. So we want to reduce the entry barrier for businesses to get started, sell online, widen your reach. So that’s the goal.”
To support that goal, Zoho Commerce includes built-in SEO tools, helping merchants show up on search engines without expensive consultants.
“So I think those are the heavy investments that we have made. So that of course costs are low, we monitize that over a lot of customers. So that’s how that’s been our business model from a business, small business point of view. The upfront investment is. Absolutely. It’s very, very less. There’s nothing much to get started. It’s very, very easy. And you can see the results and ROI very quickly.”
The promise is clear: rapid setup, quick wins, and scalability as the business grows.
Cart Abandonment Recovery: Insights and Nudges
One of the most compelling updates is cart abandonment recovery. I asked if this feature required extra spend or messaging limits.
Ganti responded, “That’s more of it’s. It doesn’t require any investment, anything more you need to do. It’s kind of. Weaved into the product itself, it’s what we found, what was. How do you make the experience better so that we minimize the chances of customer abandoning the cart? So we want to provide more insights about that, so that if there is something that you could improve. We can nudge the businesses to do something better there.”
The feature works on two levels. At the customer-facing level, it nudges buyers to stay engaged. At the business-facing level, it delivers insights on why customers abandon carts.
Ganti explained: “It’s both actually, because at the point of decision making point I I decide to leave the cart I want decide to move away. Then there’s a way to we tried to nudge the user to figure out. To stick on more, to spend more time and then. Even despite our best efforts, the customer leaves the cart right then we try to provide more insights and over which the business owner can take better decisions to improve.”
Omnichannel Selling: From WhatsApp to the Warehouse
I shifted to omnichannel sales, asking how small businesses could synchronize inventory and pricing across WhatsApp, online stores, and in-person sales.
Ganti explained that Zoho’s integrated database enables this:
“So what you’re asking is Omni channel selling. So commerce is once it’s kind of one store I can sell in person. I can still through commerce. So I think the IT comes back to. The the the thing that I mentioned very early in the conversation about commerce is built on the same platform that serves other finance products like inventory, everything. So if you’re selling on Amazon, if you’re selling on, if you have some Shopify, this thing you’re selling on Amazon, you’re selling on Etsy and then you also have your commerce store, right? … everything synchronizes back to one platform and that gets reflected.”
That means a small business can confidently sell across multiple channels—social media, marketplaces, physical locations—without worrying about overselling or inventory mismatches.
Streamlined B2B Sales: Quotes, Credit, and Accounting
For B2B sellers, Zoho Commerce now supports quote requests, negotiations, and credit limits. I asked how these features tie into accounting systems like Zoho Books or QuickBooks.
Ganti replied: “So. I think the very first thing that I mentioned is the 25 different subsystems, right? I didn’t mention the accounting subsystem because that’s a key part of this. Ultimately, everything is ties up to that. Zoho books are accounting product powers, the accounting here. So it’s real time updates into that.”
Because Zoho Commerce shares a unified database with Zoho Books, transactions automatically flow into financial statements—no double data entry required.
“Now if you’re using any other accounting product, we can hook into that as well, yeah,” Ganti added.
Education and Support
Finally, I asked where business owners could go to learn more.
Ganti shared, “Yeah, we have a lot of educational materials. We have a team that can we continuously run educational sessions on the product. So zoho.com/commerce is the website and you can find enough resources there.”
Why These Updates Matter for Small Businesses
For small business owners, every hour saved and every customer retained matters. Zoho Commerce’s updates are designed around those realities:
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Lower entry barriers: Built-in SEO, loyalty points, and cart recovery remove the need for expensive add-ons.
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Scalable operations: A unified platform ensures businesses won’t outgrow their ecommerce solution.
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Customer-centric tools: From WhatsApp sales to B2B quotes, features are designed for modern buyers.
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Accounting integration: Real-time sync with Zoho Books eliminates duplicate work.
In short, Zoho is aiming to put enterprise-level ecommerce capabilities into the hands of small businesses—without the enterprise-level cost or complexity.
As Ganti summed it up: “It’s easier to set up, easier to realize the benefits and it scales as you grow because we have built a very scalable platform.”
