What is Composable Commerce: A Game-Changer for Ecommerce Businesses
Introduction
Composable commerce is transforming the ecommerce space with its modular, customizable solutions. Traditional monolithic platforms often limit adaptability due to rigid architecture. With the composable approach, you get a ‘box of Legos’ that can be assembled as a flexible tech stack.
The approach aligns with modern business growth and changing customer demands. But what is composable commerce, and how does it affect your ecommerce store?
The article covers the Composable Commerce approach, its benefits, and the latest trends. We’ll explore its modular system, ecommerce adaptation, and how it helps businesses meet ever-evolving customer needs.
If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.
Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon.com
What is Composable Commerce? – Definition and Overview
Composable Commerce is a modern development approach to building unique and flexible eCommerce solutions. It assembles components from different vendors to create a commerce architecture that serves unique business needs optimally.
The approach lets you select the best-of-breed components, like catalog management, payment gateways, or inventory management systems. The businesses are not locked into a single product suite.
Composable Commerce is driven by the understanding that no two businesses operate identically. A one-size-fits-all solution may not provide the most efficient or effective outcomes.
With Composable Commerce, businesses can adapt quickly to market changes, scale up or down, and deliver engaging customer experiences.
Gartner first introduced the concept of dissecting large monolithic Commerce Suites into smaller packages. Gartner refers to the packages as PBCs (Packaged Business Capabilities). Packaged Business Capabilities are individual modules that provide specific functions within a larger system.
Composable Commerce also uses the MACH architecture. It stands for Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, and Headless. These elements allow you to deconstruct their digital commerce operations into flexible components.
Microservices
These separate large tasks into smaller, more manageable parts for improved system resilience.
API-first
All functions are exposed through APIs, enabling different applications and services to interact effectively. The API-first approach enables a highly composable ecommerce infrastructure. You get seamless interchangeability and integration of various commerce tools.
Cloud-native
It embraces the full capabilities of the cloud. It ensures flexibility and scalability across applications. Cloud-native technology aligns well with composable commerce. Businesses can scale up or down depending on the demand.
Headless
The decoupled nature of headless apps allows continuous improvement. Since the front end is separated from the back end, all changes are done without disrupting back-end functions. You can extend the application to multiple touchpoints, enhancing customer reach.
What is the difference between Microservices and PBCs?
PBCs differ from microservices in their scope and functionality. A microservice refers to a small, self-contained unit of code that performs a specific task within an application. A PBC is a more comprehensive component with related features or functions.
A PBC could be considered a collection of microservices that provide a complete business function. Each microservice within a PBC is responsible for a specific task. In comparison, the PBC delivers a cohesive, standalone capability.
The granular design of microservices makes them highly reusable and adaptable. It is one of the core principles of the Composable Commerce approach.
Benefits of Composable Commerce
1. Improved Developer Experience
Composable commerce enables isolated changes without affecting the entire system. It allows for faster and more secure ecommerce development processes. The developers don’t have to execute full-stack upgrades. It is more efficient and less risky to implement changes in ecommerce stores.
2. Reduced Operational Costs
Composable commerce allows businesses to only pay for what they use. It eliminates unnecessary features as merchants choose only the required vendors, reducing operational costs.
3. Flexibility and Agility
Composable commerce offers strategic and business flexibility. Businesses can select suitable providers based on market dynamics and competition analysis.
Merchants can adjust their commerce architecture to fit evolving needs. Composable commerce provides the flexibility to expand into new customer segments, channels, and markets.
4. Modular Approach
Composable commerce adopts a modular approach. Each Packaged Business Capability (PBC) can be deployed independently. It reduces risks linked to tightly coupled services that limit customization. Instead, businesses switch out modules as required and promote adaptability.
5. Open-Standard
Composable Commerce is built on open standards and supports integration patterns and extensibility models for easy interoperability. The openness encourages seamless integrations, making customized ecommerce solutions easier to implement.
6. Driving Business Innovation
Composable commerce delivers the necessary tools and capabilities for development teams and enterprises. It provides full control over innovation and customization at a reduced cost and risk. Businesses can experiment with new strategies and technologies while minimizing potential issues.
7. Cross-Functional Collaboration
Many composable commerce tools are designed with low-code or no-code interfaces. It facilitates wider business participation and enables non-technical employees to perform various tasks, such as content updates or marketing activities.
8. Future-Proofing your Business
Organizations adopting composable commerce can outpace their competition by 80% in the speed of implementing new features.
Using a composable commerce strategy is a proactive step towards future-proofing your business. A composable commerce migration can be performed gradually. It allows for carefully reviewing business goals, strategic planning, and risk minimization.
9. Time-to-Market
The modular nature of composable commerce enables faster development and deployment of ecommerce stores. Pre-built components and reusable services fasten the feature implementation process. It significantly reduces the time it takes to bring their products to market.
10. Enhanced Omnichannel Experiences
The Harvard study of 46,000 shoppers revealed that omnichannel customers were 23% more likely to repeat purchases. They would recommend the brand to others and surpass the engagement of single-channel shoppers.
Composable commerce enables seamless integration across channels, devices, and touchpoints. Using Composable Commerce, you can create consistent and personalized customer experiences.
What are the Challenges of Composable Commerce?
1. Technical Complexity
While composable commerce provides flexibility, managing the blocks require a certain level of expertise. Ecommerce businesses need skilled professionals to execute such approaches. The experts understand how to integrate different components and manage the associated complexities.
Proper integration of PBCs and services can take time, technical skills, and effort. The process may have unique contracts, APIs, and dependencies. It often requires a digitally mature ecommerce agency with complex delivery capabilities.
The Neoberx team’s expertise in ecommerce website development and platform integration simplifies the composable commerce process. Ecommerce businesses can transition smoothly to composable commerce with our custom development solutions and dedicated resources.
2. Vendor Selection
With numerous service providers available, choosing the right ones that fulfill your business needs may be challenging. Making the right choice could lead to better integration, additional costs, or missed opportunities.
For example, a payment gateway that supports limited payment methods may lead to lower customer satisfaction and lost sales. Conduct thorough research on potential vendors and prioritize system compatibility.
3. Maintenance
Maintaining a system that consists of various independent components is essential. Each component may have its update cycle. You may require a team that ensures all parts work seamlessly together and offer oversight and regular maintenance.
4. Implementing DIY Control
Merchants using microservices or headless approaches require a unified user interface over diverse components. With each element in separate systems, tasks normally easier on conventional platforms may become harder to manage.
Top 10 Trends in Composable Commerce
1.Enhanced Customization
Businesses will increasingly use composable commerce to deliver personalized shopping experiences. They can focus on tailor-made solutions to meet unique customer needs.
2.Shift from Monolithic Approach
Businesses are increasingly transitioning from monolithic to composable commerce. The rigid structure of a monolithic architecture slows down adaptation and innovation. The monolithic systems have integration drawbacks; minor modifications can cause instability in the entire platform.
Composable commerce offers much-needed scalability and flexibility. The platforms can roll out new online features, and customer experiences much faster.
3. API-First Approach
API ensures seamless integration and communication between commerce components. The API-first approach is becoming central to businesses as they streamline interactions between commerce components.
For example, merchants may use a separate inventory management system on an ecommerce platform. The inventory system API can communicate with the ecommerce platform API. It would then keep the product availability up-to-date on the website in real time.
When an item is sold or restocked, the inventory system communicates the updates via the API, and the ecommerce platform immediately reflects these changes. The seamless API interaction ensures accurate inventory tracking and minimizes the risk of overselling.
4. Rise in Headless Commerce
Separating the backend and front ends of ecommerce applications allows for greater flexibility and agility in delivering diverse customer experiences.
Composable commerce further extends this idea. It breaks down each ecommerce requirement into components. You get even greater modularity for every aspect of the commerce system.
5. Focus on Microservices
Composable commerce embraces microservices as it offers a decentralized structure. These are autonomous services, each designed to fulfill a distinct function.
This modular approach offers “plug-and-play” versatility. It allows businesses to swap, add, or eliminate software components as their requirements evolve.
You can create a complex function, such as building a shopping cart. It integrates many services, including product inventory, recommendations, pricing, discounts, ordering, and checkout microservices.
6. Device-agnostic Solutions
As ecommerce becomes more mobile, composable platforms will be developed to function seamlessly across multiple devices, enhancing user experience.
The ecommerce platform would be designed to facilitate user access across various devices. It includes desktops, laptops, tablets, or smartphones. A purchase funnel started on one device can be seamlessly completed on another.
Device-agnostic solutions allow businesses to meet customers where they are, improving the shopping experience and conversion rates.
7. Internet of Things
The Internet of Things (IoT) integration naturally fits composable commerce based on its distributed architecture. It enables businesses to connect various commercial platforms, channels, and devices. You can customize point-of-sale devices, payment systems, and other hardware merchandising.
The ecommerce software will function across various connected devices. It includes smart devices such as wearables, home appliances, or connected cars. It won’t be limited to traditional computing devices like desktops or tablets.
8. Modular Marketplaces
Businesses might turn to modular marketplaces to select, assemble and integrate components that best serve their needs.
These components could include catalog management, payment processing, customer relationship management, and logistics. Each part is independently updated or replaced. It reduces the dependency on a single vendor or solution.
A real-life example of modular marketplaces is the Shopify App Store. It offers a wide range of modules that merchants on Shopify can integrate into their stores.
9. Cloud-native Platforms
More companies are adopting cloud-native platforms. It enhances scalability, speed, and performance in their composable commerce strategy.
- Some of the cloud-native features include:
- Rapid deployment and elastic scalability
- Efficient resource utilization and load balancing
- High availability and fault tolerance
- Automated infrastructure management and scaling
- Seamless integration with other cloud services
- Continuous delivery and release management
- Improved performance and response time
10. Customer-Centric Approach
Businesses can create more customer-centric shopping experiences than ever before.You can integrate and personalize customer experiences across various touchpoints, enabling data-driven insights and creating shopping experiences based on individual customer preferences.
How Does Neoberx Help in Composable Commerce?
Neoberx offers a team of highly skilled ecommerce developers with more than a decade of experience. We specialize in creating innovative and customized solutions using approaches like composable commerce.
We understand the pain points merchants face while adopting market changes.
Our range of services is designed to address those challenges.
From building responsive e-commerce websites and mobile apps to integrating platforms and providing ecommerce optimization. Neoberx embraces innovation to deliver the best composable commerce practices for your business.
Our services in mobile app testing, user experience design, and SEO further enhance your ecommerce ventures’ overall performance.
Summary
Composable Commerce is a viable ecommerce solution as customers move to omnichannel platforms and make purchases. It helps businesses create customized, scalable and innovative user experiences by piecing together the best components.
As outlined in the article, the modern development approach emphasizes flexibility, rapid deployment, and cost savings. Adopting Composable Commerce opens up opportunities for greater customer satisfaction through personalized shopping and integrated services.
The article covered all aspects, including trends, challenges, and benefits of Composable Commerce. Contact the Neoberx team to discuss your project and kickstart your Composable Commerce journey!