Rethinking eCommerce with composable architecture
Staying ahead requires innovative approaches to e-commerce development. The solutions that we build should also change as the market changes. A composable (also known as headless or decoupled) architecture offers flexibility, scalability, and remarkable user experiences that set businesses apart from the competition. Let's dive into these concepts and explore the benefits they bring to eCommerce solutions.
What's "Composable Architecture"?
Composable architecture is like building with LEGO blocks. Developers create solutions using independent components that can be assembled and connected as needed. The components are connected through APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) allowing them to function as a cohesive unit within the composable architecture. This gives developers the freedom to choose the best-in-class technology to use for a specific use-case. This approach enables agility, extensibility, and adaptability when creating solutions for the web. With composable architectures, the components could be swapped when needed or when a better alternative is available. This enhances the solution's resilience and ensures its future viability.
Features of composable architecture and headless solutions:
Flexibility and customization
Composable architecture empowers developers to mix and match components, creating unique user experiences tailored specifically for your business needs. This also allows for flexibility in choosing the right technology for the right requirement.
What to do: Use a modular approach to design customer-facing features, allowing you to add or swap components as your user needs change.
Business impact: Achieve a highly customizable user experience by selecting the best-fit components for specific functions, making it easier to cater to unique customer needs and set your brand apart.
Scalability and performance
Composable e-commerce solutions offer elastic scalability, efficient resource allocation, and a modular architecture that ensures consistent performance even during high-traffic periods. Individual components could be scaled individually as the demand grows.
What to do: Scale individual components like the checkout or search functionality based on demand, rather than scaling the entire system.
Business impact: Optimize costs and maintain peak performance even during high-traffic events (e.g., Black Friday), ensuring your site is responsive and reliable, which improves customer satisfaction and reduces bounce rates.
Future-proofing and innovation
With composable architecture and headless solutions, you can future-proof your website. Quickly adapt to emerging technologies and market demands by upgrading or replacing specific components. Stay at the forefront of innovation and provide your customers with the latest features and functionalities.
What to do: Regularly review and replace outdated components to ensure compatibility with the latest technologies.
Business impact: Stay agile and ahead of market changes, allowing for easy updates to new trends or tech advancements without overhauling your whole system—keeping your digital offerings fresh and competitive.
Seamless Integrations
Composable architecture offer modular and API-driven architecture, these solutions allow developers to easily integrate with various third-party systems, such as payment gateways, shipping providers, marketing tools, customer relationship management (CRM) platforms, and more. This seamless integration capability allows businesses to leverage best-of-breed services, tailor their tech stack to specific needs, and easily incorporate new technologies as they emerge.
What to do: Implement API-driven connections to integrate third-party services like CRM or marketing automation tools smoothly into your architecture.
Business impact: Gain efficiency and effectiveness by connecting best-of-breed services, creating a streamlined tech stack that supports your business goals and enables quick adaptation to new tools as they arise.
Developer productivity and collaboration
Composable architecture fosters collaboration among developers. Each team of developers can work independently on different components, seamlessly connecting them to create a cohesive solution. Headless solutions provide intuitive interfaces for content management, empowering your content teams to make changes without relying on technical assistance.
What to do: Divide the development workload among teams, assigning specific components for independent work to enable parallel development.
Business impact: Boost productivity and reduce time-to-market, as independent development and easy content updates reduce bottlenecks and empower faster iterations, benefiting both developers and non-technical content teams.
Did you know? Companies using a composable approach will outpace competitors by 80% in implementing new features, making it an agile, future-ready choice for digital solutions (Gartner)
In a nutshell
Composable e-commerce represents the future of online retail, and businesses should consider embracing this approach to stay ahead in the rapidly evolving digital landscape. Composable e-commerce offers unprecedented advantages in agility, scalability, customization, faster time-to-market, and cost efficiency. By leveraging modular components, businesses can easily adapt to changing market trends, scale their operations, create unique and personalized shopping experiences, and launch new features rapidly.
Moreover, composable e-commerce solutions empower businesses to choose and integrate best-of-class components, future-proof their operations, and deliver exceptional customer experiences. With the ability to quickly respond to market demands, optimize performance, and maximize ROI, composable e-commerce is the optimal choice for companies aiming to thrive in the dynamic and competitive e-commerce industry.
Check our Varjo eCommerce Client Story for an example of a composable architecture approach & and our eCommerce solutions to give you a headstart!
About BigCommerce and Headless CMS:
BigCommerce is a leading eCommerce platform that provides businesses with a comprehensive set of tools and features to build, customize, and manage their online stores. It offers robust functionalities for product catalog management, secure payment processing, order fulfillment, and marketing campaigns. BigCommerce is known for its scalability, reliability, and seamless integrations with various third-party services.
As a supporting member of the MACH Alliance, BigCommerce is an ideal choice for composable e-commerce due to its adherence to MACH principles. BigCommerce offers a highly modular and API-first architecture, enabling seamless integrations with a wide range of best-of-breed technologies and services.
A headless CMS, such as Strapi or Directus, serves as a content hub in headless or composable e-commerce solutions. They could be used for decoupling the content creation, and product information management from the presentation layer. With a headless CMS, businesses can create and organize content and product in a centralized manner, independent of the specific store frontends.
This enables content to be seamlessly distributed across multiple storefront channels.
By separating the back-end content management from the front-end presentation, businesses gain flexibility, agility, and the ability to deliver consistent and personalized experiences across various touchpoints, ensuring a cohesive brand presence and enhanced customer engagement in the headless e-commerce ecosystem.