Composable commerce explained

Composable commerce is a modern approach to constructing e-commerce platforms. The term 'composable' refers to the modularity and flexibility of this approach. Rather than being a monolithic, all-in-one platform, composable commerce allows businesses to select and integrate individual components that best suit their needs.

Think of it like LEGO: you can mix and match the blocks according to your preferences, connecting them through integrations and APIs.

By embracing composable commerce, you can future-proof your business, deliver exceptional customer experiences, and stay ahead of the competition in today's rapidly evolving digital landscape.

Benefits of composable commerce

The key benefits of adopting a composable commerce architecture include:

• Flexibility: businesses can choose the best components for their specific needs, allowing them to create tailored solutions that perfectly fit their requirements.
• Scalability: as each component can be scaled independently, businesses can easily accommodate growth and handle increased traffic without compromising performance.
• Agility: with a modular architecture, businesses can quickly adapt to changing market conditions, customer preferences, and new technologies.
• Best-of-breed functionality: by selecting specialized tools for different aspects of their e-commerce operations, businesses can leverage the best features and capabilities available in the market.
• Customization: composable commerce allows businesses to create unique, differentiated experiences that set them apart from competitors.

Building blocks of composable commerce

Composable e-commerce is all about creating flexible and customized online shopping experiences by combining best-of-breed components. The key building blocks include systems for managing content, products, customer data, orders, payments and analytics.

Challenges of composable commerce

While composable commerce has great benefits, there are some challenges:

• Complex integration: combining parts from different vendors isn't always easy and needs careful planning to ensure data flows smoothly. In other words, low API quality can introduce the need for complex workarounds or middlewares.
• Maintenance: keeping (sub)systems updated and working together takes time and engineering skills.
• Vendor management: managing multiple vendors for support and contracts can be challenging and time consuming.
• Initial costs: starting out can be pricier than traditional platforms, but it often pays off in the long run.

Supercosmic has extensive experience with composable e-commerce backbones to mitigate these challenges.

Composable commerce vs. headless commerce

While often used interchangibly with 'headless commerce', and while there is overlap, composable commerce is not the same as a headless website. Headless websites specifically separate the frontend ('how it looks') from the backend ('how it works').

Composable commerce is a broader framework that goes beyond the website and includes all (sub)systems of e-commerce, such as CMS, CRM, EMP and PIM.