What is composable commerce? Why has it been identified as one of the ecommerce trends to watch in 2021?
As if choosing an ecommerce platform was not difficult enough, as the technology keeps changing, the Ingredients for ecommerce success need to monitored and assessed for suitability to deliver real return on investment.
Composable commerce allows you to build an ecommerce solution by integrating best of breed components rather than having to choose a single, or monolithic platform.
It’s a bit like buying a computer. You can go down to the Apple store and pick up a laptop that is what it is. It’s well designed, tested, secure, and does 90% of the things you need it to do – a bit like Shopify.
Or, you can research the best components that have been designed in a way that they will all work together, but you can have a bit more control – the processor, the GPU, the solid state drive, the housing… this is the composable commerce approach.
Even the most well developed, enterprise ecommerce systems can’t do everything and there is a long list of capabilities that form part of the solution – from CMS to Order Management to Promotions to Customer Support and payment.
This highly integrated approach more suited to complicated projects like B2B ecommerce rather than smaller merchants who want to start selling online quickly. A composable approach to ecommerce requires more expert knowledge at all stages – from choosing components to making them all work seamlessly together.
In some senses, this is not new. Many ecommerce platforms, from WooCommerce to Shopify to Magento have supported rich ecosystems and marketplaces that allow pre-packaged integrations with best of breed services. But composable commerce takes this idea further.
Ideology vs Efficiency vs Experience
There is always a risk when business critical functions are provided by a single 3rd party vendor, especially if that company has a ‘walled garden’ or closed platform approach.
Many software companies have relied upon business models that engineer high switching costs to dissuade merchants from changing platforms. This has included binding the user experience to to the back-end platform. In other words – the design or ‘theme’ will only work with that solution.
This has been challenged through the growth of ‘headless’ architecture, which is a concept that is key to composable commerce.
Composable Commerce for Merchants
The advantages of this approach to ecommerce projects for retailers and merchants is the ability to have more control over Packaged Business Capabilities (PBC).
This modularity reduces risk of vendor lock-in by being able to ‘swap out’ different parts of the solution without any impact on the customer experience.
This approach also allows companies flexibility – to support novel business models or partner with local suppliers who may understand business realities without having to wait for a product roadmap determined in North America.
By de-coupling the user experience from the back-end, retailers can also stand out from ecommerce stores that all look the same.
How Composable Commerce is Enabled by Technology
Have you heard of MACH? This is the technology that helps to deliver composable commerce. According to the MACH Aliance: MACH is an acronym for Microservices; API-first, Cloud-native; and Headless. The modular design of MACH solutions enables businesses to keep up with emerging technologies without undertaking multiple replatforming projects.
Is Composable Commerce Right for Your Business?
Maybe. Is your business model different from a standard – browse, add to cart, checkout scenario? Do you want extra flexibility that is not offered by traditional or walled-garden vendors? Do you have the capability to be able to choose which ‘best of breed’ partners you want to integrate into your solution? Do you have in-house developers or system integrators who can design and maintain the user experience? If you answered yes to the questions above, then it might be right for you.