What is Composable Commerce?

Introduction

Composable Commerce is an upcoming and promising approach to ecommerce. Many companies use this word in their marketing to gain momentum but in many cases the real meaning of Composable is missing. Before you can fully benefit from Composable Commerce, it’s important to understand what it truly is. 

So, let us, for once and for all, explain what it is, what composable architecture looks like and how you can get started.

Composable Commerce: the definition

Composable Commerce allows online merchants to select and assemble various best of breed commerce solutions and compose them to deliver differentiated and highly engaging commerce experiences. 

Composable Commerce is a modular approach to digital commerce. Instead of using a monolithic, one-size-fits-all, solution, you collect and combine different loosely-coupled services that meet specific business needs, such as a shopping cart, search, promotion or order management. All these software components communicate through a composer. This allows digital brands to build what they truly need, rather than relying on one single vendor. We’ll explain this in more detail in the next section.

Composable Architecture

There are different approaches to ecommerce. A monolithic software architecture is still the most common one in ecommerce but that’s slowly changing. Composable Architecture is emerging and slowly getting the credits it deserves. You can imagine that this approach massively changes the way businesses operate. 

A composable, or service-oriented architecture, separates and decentralizes all the different systems you need in your tech stack. To ensure the right dataflows we need a service for real-time communication, connections and data orchestration between the different services and frontend(s). That’s where the composer comes in, to connect all the dots between the systems and services. 

Change of Perspective 

Composable Commerce is a change of perspective. It allows online merchants to take on a customer-centric approach, rather than depending on one platform. It is for good reason that a composable architecture is also known as service-oriented architecture. You choose the services that are best for your business, and most importantly, for your customers. 

Foundation for Flexibility 

Composable architecture provides the flexibility no other software architecture can. It delivers the foundation to build a complete composable digital experience platform. You can pick the tools to map your business processes 100% to your needs, while the composer takes care of the connections and orchestration between them. 

Evolution, not Revolution 

A Composable approach integrates modern API-first systems with legacy monoliths to provide continuous innovative feature delivery. This allows businesses to update their architecture through evolution. Don't throw away your entire system or worry about a full replatforming. Choose a starting point and only replace the relevant parts, now and with any future change.

Getting started with Composable Commerce

There are three simple rules to get started. First of all, it’s important to have clear goals. What do you want to achieve? What do you want to focus on? And how can changing from a monolithic or headless approach to Composable Commerce help you achieve this. When you have clear goals and priorities, it’s time to map the services you are using and the services you want to use. Keep the good stuff of your existing ecommerce platform and complement it with best of breed commerce solutions that support your business growth. Last but not least, choose your starting point. Depending on your specific needs and goals and the complexity of the online store you can gradually add additional features and services. Start with the most important parts of your business and grow towards a platform that is fully adapted to your needs and wishes. 

Now that you have your goals, existing and desired services and starting point clear, we can connect your existing tech stack to Deity’s Commerce Composer to make these different systems and services work well together and with as many frontends as you need.

Deity is the leading platform for Composable Commerce

Make the switch to Composable Commerce with Deity and build a platform that is ready for any future change. Do you for example want to add different PSPs to support all payment methods your customers expect? Or do you want to replace your old CMS for a new and innovative one? Not a problem. You can now adapt to changes in the market and customer demand quickly, without adding complexity. 

Are you ready to grow and take the next step in ecommerce? Get ahead of your competitors and contact us, we’re ready to start our next adventure together.