Sana vs. Intershop: Which B2B e-commerce platform is the right fit for your business?

At first glance, Sana and Intershop look like they solve the same problem. Both are dedicated B2B e-commerce platforms built for manufacturers and wholesalers with the features you'd expect on each: account-based pricing, complex checkout, catalog management, and customer self-service portals.

The differences show up in three places: how each one connects to your ERP system, what the buying experience feels like day to day, and what each one gives your team to grow the channel. If you're running SAP or Microsoft Dynamics, those differences matter more than the feature lists suggest. Here, we’ll break down exactly how the two compare.

Intershop at a glance

Intershop is a German B2B e-commerce platform founded in 1992, one of the longest-standing names in the industry. It's built for large manufacturers and wholesalers, mostly in Europe, that operate across many markets at once. Its modular, headless setup can run multiple storefronts, currencies, and markets from one system, and gives developers a lot of control over how the storefront looks and works.

The flip side is that this control assumes you have developers. Intershop is its own system that sits next to your ERP, so building the front end and keeping the overall implementation running is work that falls on your team or an implementation partner. Its stack is broad (commerce management, a built-in PIM, order management, AI-powered search, and a customer engagement center), and it's been recognized by analysts like Forrester and IDC as a credible enterprise option. For a business with the developers and budget to make the most of it, that breadth is a real strength.

Sana Commerce at a glance

Sana Commerce is a B2B e-commerce platform founded in Rotterdam in 2007, built for manufacturers and wholesalers running SAP or Microsoft Dynamics. The idea behind it is simple: instead of being a separate system that connects to your ERP, Sana runs on top of your ERP, using it as the foundation of the store itself.

Sana Commerce creates a new future of connected commerce. Purpose-built for manufacturing, it anchors your store in real-time ERP data, connects that ERP across your wider systems, brings every buyer and seller touchpoint together, and adds guided intelligence that turns insight into action. It comes as a complete store out of the box built to handle even the most complex product offerings, with content management, a self-service portal, order management, and guided buying tools that pull live ERP data straight into the storefront. Sana has been named in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce four years running, and its 1,500-plus customers span manufacturing, industrial equipment, spare parts, machinery, construction, chemicals, medical supplies, and electronics.

Sana Commerce Cloud is a SaaS platform and a certified SAP and Microsoft Gold Partner, with native, certified ERP integration for SAP and Microsoft Dynamics ERPs, including:

• SAP ECC
• SAP S/4HANA
• SAP Business One
• Microsoft Dynamics AX, F&O / SCM
• Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Business Central

The first difference: How each one connects to your ERP

This is where the comparison stops being about features and starts being about architecture.

Intershop is its own system that sits next to your ERP. To get data into the webstore, your pricing, stock, product information, and customer details are synced from your ERP into Intershop, most commonly through Intershop's low-code Integration Hub, which includes pre-built connectors and accelerators for SAP and Microsoft Dynamics. Intershop then works from that synced version. Configuring those connectors and any surrounding business logic is still work your team or an implementation partner takes on, though the pre-built connectors reduce how much of it is custom-coded from scratch.

Sana works differently. Instead of copying data out of your ERP, it's built directly on top of it. When a buyer checks their price or looks up stock, Sana goes straight to SAP or Dynamics in that moment and reads the answer. There's no separate version of the data, and no sync keeping things lined up. Whatever is in your ERP is what the buyer sees, right then and there.

That difference has real consequences for accuracy, upkeep, and how much your team has to manage.

What this difference means for your team

• Pricing accuracy: Sana reads each customer's specific price live from your ERP at the moment of every order, so what the buyer sees is always right. Intershop works from a cached, synced version of your pricing, so the storefront is only as current as the last sync.
• Upkeep: With Sana, there's one system to maintain: your ERP. With Intershop, your pricing, catalog, and customer data live in two places, kept in sync automatically through the Integration Hub's connectors, which cuts down on manual upkeep. There are still two systems that need to agree, though, and catching any drift between them falls to your team or partner.
• Maintenance after updates: With Sana, keeping the platform and your ERP compatible is Sana's job. When something changes on either side, Sana handles it. With Intershop, the standard connectors are maintained by Intershop, but any custom business logic layered on top in the Integration Hub may need a review when your ERP or Dynamics environment changes significantly.
• Setup: Sana's native, certified ERP integration for SAP and Dynamics cuts the complexity from day one, with no middleware to configure. Intershop's low-code Integration Hub narrows that gap with pre-built connectors and accelerators, but configuration and implementation work still typically fall to your team or a partner. This is where platform extensibility matters. It comes down to how much of that integration work a platform absorbs versus leaves for you to build.

The second difference: What buying actually feels like

How a platform connects to the ERP decides what's possible. The buying experience is what your customers actually feel.

Because Sana reads live from the ERP, the storefront behaves like your back office: the right products, the right prices, the right stock, every time. For manufacturers selling equipment and spare parts, that kind of accuracy is the heart of the experience. Buyers often arrive knowing exactly the part they need, and they expect to find it, see a correct price, check real stock, and reorder without a phone call. Sana's guided buying tools are built for exactly that kind of fast, confident self-service.

Intershop delivers a strong, highly customizable buyer experience, too, especially where you have the front-end developers to shape it. The difference sits underneath: that experience runs on Intershop's own synced version of the data, so how accurate it feels depends on how well the sync keeps up.

What this difference means for your team

• Buyer confidence in the moment: Because Sana reads live from the ERP, buyers can be confident when using the self-service platform. Intershop's buyer experience is only as fresh as the last sync, so how confident buyers feel depends on sync frequency and reliability.
• Personalization effort: Intershop offers personalized customer portals and dynamic customer segmentation out of the box, and can layer in SPARQUE.AI for tailored search and recommendations, though getting real value from SPARQUE typically requires a consulting engagement and some domain expertise to configure well. Sana's guided buying tools are purpose-built for parts search and reorder, so there's no separate personalization project to run.
• Front-end control: Intershop's headless PWA gives your developers full control to shape a highly customized buying experience, a real advantage if you have dedicated front-end resources. Sana ships a complete storefront out of the box, which means less to build but also less to customize at the front-end level.

The third difference: The tools to grow, and how AI fits in

A B2B channel should do more than take orders accurately. It should show you where the next order is coming from, and both platforms are leaning on AI here, just in different ways.

Sana includes built-in analytics and a Commerce Console that puts your performance data and next steps in one place, so your e-commerce manager can see what's working and act on it. Its AI shows up where it speeds up everyday commerce: auto-generating product descriptions and attributes, and powering visual and guided part search that helps buyers find the right item fast. Sana is actively expanding its own AI and guided-intelligence capabilities, partnering with third-party tools like Tweakwise to layer AI-powered product suggestions and personalization onto the storefront.

Intershop has invested heavily in AI, with AI-powered search and recommendations (SPARQUE.AI) and an AI/BI analytics layer. If AI-driven discovery and merchandising are high on your list, it's a strong option.

The simplest way to decide: Sana's AI works behind the scenes to keep data accurate and help buyers find the right part fast, then turns reorder patterns into next steps for your team. Intershop's AI works at the front, with search and recommendations built to engage shoppers as they browse. If your buyers come to reorder known parts quickly, Sana's approach fits. If they come to browse and discover, and engaging them in the moment is the goal, Intershop’s approach fits.

What this difference means for your team

• Where the AI work happens: Sana's AI (product description generation, guided part search) is built into the core platform and aimed at speeding up day-to-day reordering. Intershop's AI (SPARQUE.AI search and recommendations) is a separate module usually delivered with a consulting package, so getting full value from it takes additional setup and domain expertise beyond the base platform.
• Analytics ownership: Sana's Commerce Console and Insights are part of the core platform and surface reorder and replenishment patterns without a separate BI project. Intershop's BI Data Hub is its own module in the stack that gives you broad reporting flexibility, but building specific insights on top of it is additional work for your team or a partner.
• Who it fits: Sana's growth tooling suits teams that want ready-made insights out of the box. Intershop's suits teams with in-house data or analytics resources who want to build custom BI and merchandising use cases on a flexible platform.

Sana Commerce vs. Intershop: Feature comparison

Both platforms offer a strong set of B2B e-commerce capabilities. The table below provides a clear side-by-side comparison of where they align and where they diverge:

Where Intershop has an edge

Intershop has real strengths, and for the right business, they matter:

• Front-end flexibility: Intershop's API-first, headless setup gives developers a lot of control over the storefront, and its PWA framework supports highly customized stores. That power is worth it if you have dedicated front-end developers to use it.
• Efficient integration tooling: Intershop's low-code Integration Hub includes pre-built connectors and accelerators for SAP and Microsoft Dynamics, which can meaningfully cut down on custom development compared to a fully bespoke integration. 
• Large-enterprise track record and integrator ecosystem: Intershop has a long history serving large, complex enterprises and a deep bench of implementation partners. If you're running a big, multi-market operation and want an established partner network around the platform, that's a genuine asset.

Where Sana Commerce has an edge

For manufacturers and wholesalers on SAP or Microsoft Dynamics, Sana's advantages map straight onto the things that matter day to day:

• Built for how parts buyers actually buy: Visual and guided part search helps buyers identify the exact part they need (by sight, by machine, or from an exploded view) and reorder it without a phone call. For equipment and spare-parts sellers, that's the difference between a buyer self-serving and a buyer calling your team.
• Tools that turn data into reorders: Commerce Console and Insights bring your performance data and next steps into one place, surfacing reorder and replenishment patterns so you can act on demand you'd otherwise miss. This means you get growth tooling out of the box, not as a separate BI project.
• AI that speeds up everyday commerce: Sana uses AI where it saves real time, auto-generating product descriptions and attributes, and powering the guided part search that gets buyers to the right item fast. It also works with third-party tools like Tweakwise to add AI-powered product suggestions and personalization, with more of its own AI capability actively in development.
• Accurate data your buyers can trust: Because Sana reads live from the ERP, every buyer sees pricing, stock, and account terms that match your ERP at that exact moment, not as of the last sync.
• A real fit for SAP and Dynamics, with less to maintain: Sana is built with the ERP as its foundation, with certified connectors Sana builds and maintains. That means no middleware to configure, lower long-term cost, faster time to launch, and one source of truth instead of two systems to keep in sync.

Explore a full B2B e-commerce platform comparison to see how Sana stacks up against other platforms.

Which platform is right for your business?

The right choice depends on your ERP, your development resources, and what you need the channel to do.

Choose Sana Commerce if…

• You sell equipment and spare parts. Visual and guided part search, reorder tools, and live stock are built for how your buyers actually buy.
• You want growth tools out of the box. Commerce Console and Insights surface reorder patterns and next steps with no separate BI project required.
• You're on SAP or Microsoft Dynamics and want your webstore to show live, accurate ERP data every time: contract pricing, stock, account terms, and order rules.
• You'd rather keep things simple to run. One source of truth, certified connectors Sana maintains, a faster launch, and no middleware to babysit or second system to keep in sync.

Choose Intershop if…

• You want deep front-end customization and have the developers available to build and maintain it.
• You're a large, complex enterprise that values an established platform and a deep network of implementation partners.
• You're not on SAP or Microsoft Dynamics. Intershop's Integration Hub connects to a wider range of systems.

Questions to ask on demo calls

When you're evaluating either platform, the questions that matter most are about how each one connects to your ERP, and how your buyers actually use the store. A generic demo won't surface the operational differences, but these will:

• "Do you read ERP data live at the moment of a transaction, or from a separate synced version?" If there's a sync, push on how often it runs, what happens if it fails, and who maintains it after ERP updates. Vague phrases like "real-time sync" can mean very different things.
• "How do you handle customer-specific pricing from the ERP, like account tiers, contract pricing, or volume discounts?" You want to know whether pricing reads from the ERP at the moment of purchase or sits in separate rules that have to stay in sync, and what happens when a price changes.
• "What's pre-built versus what still needs to be configured or coded for our SAP or Dynamics setup?" A vendor with a mature connector library can show you exactly what's out of the box and what typically requires custom work for a business like yours.
• "What's a realistic implementation timeline for a business our size and ERP setup, and what will it need from us?" Be wary of wide ranges. A vendor with real experience in your ERP can speak to the work involved and what your team will own after go-live.
• "Can you show a buyer finding and reordering a part by machine or image, not just part number?" This tells you whether there's a real guided or visual part search or just a search bar. Ask them to do it live with a part that has variants or substitutes.
• "Where does AI show up in the product today, and what's live versus roadmap?" A useful answer names real features and is honest about what's shipped, not just "we have AI."

Why manufacturers running SAP and Dynamics choose Sana Commerce

The right platform is the one that fits how your business actually runs. For manufacturers and wholesalers on SAP or Microsoft Dynamics, it comes down to one question: do you want your commerce channel built on top of your ERP, or connected to it? This decides whether buyers see accurate prices at checkout, whether you maintain one system or two, and whether an ERP update introduces risk into your store.

With Sana, the ERP is the foundation, not a separate system running in parallel that has to be reconciled. Every transaction reflects live ERP data, from account pricing to real-time stock, and customer conditions that would otherwise mean manual order handling are automated. There's no second data layer, no sync schedule, and no gap between what your ERP knows and what your buyers see. And because the data is always right, the rest follows: buyers self-serve with confidence, and the analytics and guided tools on top are worth acting on.

Over 1,500 B2B companies have chosen to partner with Sana Commerce. To see how we could work for your business, request a demo and see the ERP integration in action.