Composable Commerce Migration: Master the Future of E-Commerce (2024)
In the dynamic world of e-commerce, staying ahead means embracing change. Composable Commerce represents this change, offering a flexible, scalable, and customer-centric approach to online retail.
I spent over a decade working on e-commerce. Two years ago, I moved from a monolith to a composable world.
As a person on the technology side, this change is noticeable to me. There are different scopes of e-commerce projects, different topics for project discovery sessions, and different approaches to implementation.
But the biggest benefits are not on the technology but on the business side.
This article delves into the journey of migrating from traditional monolithic systems to the innovative realm of Composable Commerce.
Why Migrate to Composable Commerce?
The shift to Composable Commerce is driven by the need for greater flexibility and a more personalized customer experience. Traditional monolithic platforms, while robust, often lack the agility needed in today’s fast-paced market.
Composable Commerce, with its modular architecture, allows businesses to adapt to market trends rapidly, integrate new technologies, and provide bespoke customer experiences.
Enhanced Flexibility and Scalability in Composable Commerce
Composable Commerce enables businesses to select and integrate components that best fit their specific needs, allowing for easier scaling and adaptation to changing business requirements.
Merchants are no longer limited to single solutions closed within the box of monolith applications. They can continuously optimize the digital commerce experience by leveraging many different vendors that are composed together to build processes that best-fit business needs.
Improving Customer Experiences with Composable Commerce
The ability to quickly implement and modify components means companies can swiftly respond to customer preferences, offering a more personalized shopping experience.
I worked on a Composable Commerce migration project where the client moved from a custom home-built solution to a composable one. The project was divided into multiple phases. The first phase included functionality with the biggest financial impact — optimizing the checkout process to reduce cart abandon rate and increase conversion.
Thanks to the modularity offered by the Composable Commerce platform, the scope was limited to cart and checkout only. There was minimal need to modify the front end but no need to migrate data or integrate external systems. It helped to offer a simplified and more intuitive checkout journey in a very short time.
Cost-Effectiveness and Faster Time-to-Market
While the initial investment might be significant, Composable Commerce can be more cost-effective in the long run, as businesses invest only in the necessary components.
Deploying new features and updates becomes quicker, helping businesses stay competitive.
Initially, it may not be obvious since changing the approach and mindset from monolith to composable requires time and effort. However, be sure you will see the benefits in the long term.
Preparing for Composable Commerce Migration
Migrating to Composable Commerce involves several critical steps:
- Define Business Goals and Use Cases: Identify what drives the shift to Composable Commerce and align it with business objectives.
- Evaluate Current Infrastructure: Assess the limitations or dependencies of your current system and ensure compatibility with Composable Commerce components.
- Research and Select Components: Choose components like e-commerce platforms, CMS, payment gateways, etc., that align with your business goals.
- Plan Your Integration Strategy: Adopt a gradual migration approach to minimize disruption and allow testing and optimization.
- Implement and Monitor: With components defined and integrated, launch your Composable Commerce platform and continuously monitor its performance.
Challenges and Best Practices in Composable Commerce Migration
Migrating to Composable Commerce is not without its challenges. Integrating various components into a cohesive system requires careful planning and expertise.
Hiring Challenges in Composable Environments
The first question you must ask is whether you have skills and resources.
34% identified making new hires to perform these functions as a critical barrier.”
With legacy monolith applications, you usually have a solution expert who can configure the system and tweak it further to optimize it.
This person often has excellent business knowledge. They also have expertise in your e-commerce solution.
The composable approach is different.
You are building the layer that interconnects all system components. It is more development-driven.
Integration is the backbone of it. It requires architects and developers to extend and optimize your digital commerce solution.
Plus, you need to have someone who will handle the business side.
Besides, a Composable Commerce solution contains many smaller components. Each one may be a separate SaaS application. You need domain expertise across all of them.
With a monolith solution, you have a single account and interface. You use it to manage all functionalities.
With a composable one, you have many ones.
If you need professional help or support, you need to deal with many software vendors, not a single one. This is different from monolith applications.
This provides scalability challenges for IT departments.
With a composable approach, companies need more people and bigger technical teams.
Data Migration and Integration Complexities
Data migration from a monolithic system to a composable architecture can be complex, and effective change management is crucial for a smooth transition.
During Composable Commerce migration, you will be dealing with separate components. Each component stored data individually, having its independent data model and methods to export and import data.
The ecommerce data migration process has three stages: analysis, ‘build and test,’ and execution. Each stage will require steps specific to all the composable components included in the project’s current phase. It usually means a bigger scope due to various software vendors.
Navigating Integration Complexities
You deal with independent modules. Thus, the team spends most of the project time on integrations.
It can be an advantage for simple solutions but a challenge for more complex ones.
All SaaS products have performance limits. It can be either rate limits for API, API message size limits, or limited batch processing support.
If you need a solution that needs to scale and process large amounts of data, you need to handle it. This increases your work’s complexity.
Implementing a business process across many integrated systems can be simple. Yet, investigating issues is no longer trivial.
You can’t look at logs and easily identify the problem. You need to understand the process to know where to start looking.
SaaS solutions are black boxes for most clients.
If you can’t identify the issue, you have to contact product support. They can look at what’s happening behind the scenes.
This introduces more groups to the investigation, which brings extra coordination effort.
Best Practices for Successful Migration
Best practices for a successful migration include strategic planning, choosing the right technology partners, focusing on user experience, and continuous testing and optimization.
Invest time in deep Composable Commerce migration technical discovery; do not save on it. It may seem like this time is not worth spending, but believe me, it will pay dividends in the project’s later phases.
The Role of Modern Technologies in Composable Commerce
Composable Commerce is built with modern technologies like Progressive Web Apps (PWAs), microservices, and Packaged Business Capabilities (PBCs), all communicating via APIs.
This tech stack offers exceptional customer experiences, improved SEO performance, future-proof scalability, and agility.
In a composable solution, you create a service. It connects all those modules in a desired business-ready solution.
Since it is consuming API, it is technology agnostic. You can deploy it anywhere you want and change it whenever you want.
You can continuously optimize your digital commerce experience. Leverage many vendors composed together.
Don’t you like the vendor, or does it no longer fit your needs? You can replace this component without changing the whole system!
Conclusion: The Path Forward in E-Commerce
Composable Commerce migration is more than a technological upgrade; it’s a strategic realignment toward a more agile, customer-centric, and innovative business model.
Composable Commerce requires proper organizational capabilities and resources that may not exist. Before committing to Composable Commerce migration, ensure you are ready.
By embracing this approach, your business can create personalized, scalable, and efficient e-commerce experiences, ensuring long-term success in the digital marketplace.
FAQs on Composable Commerce Migration
What is Composable Commerce?
Composable Commerce is an approach that involves selecting the best commerce components. Then, you combine them into a custom solution.
This solution aligns with business needs. It changes how digital commerce solutions are architected. It provides more flexibility and agility for the business.
Why does Composable Commerce matter?
Composable Commerce provides flexibility and agility for the business. It helps speed up time-to-market. It also allows leveraging technology solutions aligned with business needs.
It also paves the way for an easier commerce replatforming process. Companies can move from one platform to another step-by-step instead of all at once.
How does Composable Commerce work?
The composable approach uses many vendors. Each offers robust functionality for one thing they do. This contrasts with relying on a single vendor for a one-size-fits-all offering.
Composable Commerce solutions consist of many smaller applications. They are usually offered as Software As A Service (SaaS) solutions. These applications work together to support desired business processes.
I am MK. I specialize in helping businesses streamline their digital commerce processes while ensuring an exceptional online customer experience.
If you are looking for a skilled e-commerce architect who understands the importance of a great user experience or need help figuring out where to start your digital commerce journey, do not hesitate to contact me!
