This is a guest post written by Anna Kvasnevska, Content Marketing Manager at Alokai.
Flexibility alone doesn’t cut it anymore — for an eCommerce business to truly succeed these days, you need an architecture that allows you to innovate rapidly and stay ahead of the competition. If you’ve already adopted a headless architecture, you’re on the right track.
But as your business grows and customer expectations evolve, going headless might not be enough. That’s where composable architecture comes in.
New to the game? You’ve come to the right place! We’ll cover everything you need to know about the composable tech stack, how it supports your existing headless frontend, and in what ways it helps you optimize critical components of your current architecture.
What is composable architecture and how does it work?
Composable architecture is a modular approach to building technology systems, giving you full control to integrate, scale, and replace individual components based on your business needs. This flexible structure allows you to customize your tech stack, adapt quickly to changes, and incorporate the latest innovations, driving efficiency and increasing competitive advantage.
Composable architecture works by using APIs to connect different systems, making it easy to add or replace functionalities as needed. Think of it as a highly adaptable puzzle, where each piece can be swapped out to better suit your business requirements, allowing you to respond quickly to changing market demands or technological advancements.
Benefits of composable commerce
When it comes to eCommerce specifically, composable architecture comes with some undeniable benefits:
Flexibility: Сonsumer behavior and market conditions change rapidly, especially in eCommerce. Composable architecture allows you to integrate new elements to your tech stack, replace outdated ones, and experiment with different setups without overhauling your entire system.
Scalability: As your business grows, so do the demands on the technology you’re using. With a composable stack, you can scale specific components, such as your eCommerce platform or PIM, independently of others. For example, during peak shopping periods like Black Friday, you might need to scale up your order management system without affecting other parts of your architecture, resulting in lower risk and downtime.
Customization: We don’t need to tell you how important customization is. Every eCommerce business has unique requirements. Whether you need to optimize your checkout process, enhance your product search functionality, or streamline your content delivery, a composable architecture allows you to create a tailored solution to satisfy your specific needs and help you deliver the exceptional digital experience that your customers expect.
Innovation: Keeping up with the trends is not an easy task and requires constant innovation. Thanks to its modular nature, composable architecture enables you to quickly adopt new technologies — such as AI-driven analytics or advanced customer segmentation tools — without waiting for a full system upgrade. This keeps your business at the forefront of the industry!
But how exactly does it affect each element of your technology stack?
Enhance the core components of your technology stack by going composable
Thanks to composable architecture, you get to pick from best-of-breed solutions to add to your technology stack, instead of settling for the built-in functionality of your existing system, which enriches the experience for both your teams and your customers — leading to higher customer satisfaction and improved performance.
Content management systems (CMS)
You already know that a headless CMS is superior to the traditional one. With a composable CMS, you gain the flexibility to deliver content seamlessly across web, mobile, social media, and in-store displays. For example, Amplience offers omnichannel content delivery integrated with advanced AI features and technologies that ensure your messaging is consistent and engaging, regardless of where your customers interact with your brand. And, by leveraging AI, you can speed up your time-to-market and increase workflow efficiency.
Frontend
A decoupled frontend increases personalization opportunities and streamlines content management workflows, making it easier to keep your content fresh and relevant. And thanks to Frontend as a Service solution like Alokai, you can leverage the full power of a composable frontend even with your legacy backend.
Product information management (PIM)
Managing product information across various channels can be complex, especially as your catalog grows. A composable PIM provides the flexibility to organize and distribute product data efficiently.
For instance, if you launch a new product line, a composable PIM allows you to quickly update and syndicate product information across all sales channels, ensuring consistency and reducing time-to-market. The scalability of this approach means your PIM grows with your product range, and customization options allow you to tailor data management to your specific needs.
Leading platforms in this space include Akeneo, inRiver, and Pimcore.
eCommerce platform
Notable composable eCommerce platforms include Shopify Plus, BigCommerce, and CommerceTools.
A composable eCommerce platform offers significant advantages in terms of customer experience and operational efficiency. By decoupling the frontend from the backend, you can create a tailored shopping experience that meets the unique needs of your customers.
For example, you can implement advanced search and merchandising tools that make it easier for customers to find products, leading to higher conversion rates. Additionally, the ability to integrate various payment gateways, enhance security protocols, and streamline order management ensures that your eCommerce operations run smoothly, even as you scale.
Customer data platform (CDP)
A composable CDP is critical for managing customer data effectively in a privacy-conscious world. By unifying data from multiple sources, a CDP enables you to create a single view of the customer, allowing for more personalized marketing and better customer service.
Say you’ve noticed a trend in customer behavior that indicates a preference for a specific product category. Composability principle allows you to work with the platform that will help you to quickly adjust your marketing strategy to target those preferences, driving higher engagement and sales.
Popular CDPs for ecommerce are Segment, Tealium, and mParticle.
Analytics and business intelligence
Composable analytics and BI solutions, like Looker, Tableau, and Domo, integrate various data sources and provide tailored insights that drive the decision-making process.
For instance, if your business operates across multiple regions, you can use composable BI tools to analyze regional sales data separately, allowing you to tailor marketing strategies to each of your different audiences. The scalability of these tools ensures that as your data grows, your analytics capabilities can grow with it, supporting continuous innovation.
Instead of leveraging one analytical solution, you can use the strongest features of the different ones, to ensure you never miss an important alert.
Customer support and CRM
Customer service and relationship management are critical for eCommerce success. A composable approach allows you to integrate advanced tools, such as AI-driven chatbots, that enhance customer interactions and improve response times.
By integrating a chatbot with your CRM system, you can provide personalized support to customers based on their purchase history and preferences, improving customer satisfaction and loyalty. Workflow automation further streamlines these processes, freeing up your team to focus on more strategic tasks.
If you’re looking for a powerful CRM suite, consider Salesforce, HubSpot, or Zendesk.
How do you know it’s time to go composable?
Okay, all that sounds good in theory, but does it mean every business needs to go composable ASAP and never look back? Not at all.
Instead, you should consider several crucial factors. Let’s take a look at some specific scenarios where a simple headless frontend might not suffice, and you’ll need the added flexibility of composable architecture.
The increasing complexity of customer expectations: If your customers demand more personalized and seamless experiences across multiple channels, and your current system is struggling to keep up, it’s time to consider going composable. You need to look for a solution that will grant you the required flexibility and provide access to a variety of solutions – composability lets you experiment as you search.
Rapid business growth: As your business scales, you might find that your existing headless setup can’t handle the increased load or the need for more sophisticated features. For example, during peak sales periods, if your system experiences downtime because it can’t scale certain components independently, moving to a composable architecture will allow you to scale up only the necessary parts of your stack without disrupting the entire system.
Need for faster innovation: You might be finding it hard to implement new technologies or integrate new tools quickly. If your competitors are launching AI-driven features that you can’t match because your system can’t easily accommodate new integrations, composable architecture might be the answer. It will enable you to innovate faster and stay in the game.
Operational inefficiencies: If your team is spending more time managing and maintaining your tech stack than on strategic initiatives, it’s a clear sign that you need a more flexible solution. For example, if you’re constantly dealing with integration issues or if upgrading one part of your system requires significant downtime or affects other components, moving to a composable architecture can reduce these operational headaches and improve overall efficiency.
Is composable commerce for everyone?
A composable architecture comes with numerous benefits needed to thrive in a competitive market. By allowing you to integrate and upgrade components independently, it ensures that your tech stack can evolve alongside your business, enabling you to deliver exceptional customer experiences and drive growth.
If you’re noticing signs that your current setup is holding you back — whether it’s due to increasing customer expectations, rapid growth, the need for faster innovation, or operational inefficiencies — it may be time to consider going composable. The sooner you make the transition, the better positioned you’ll be to meet the challenges and opportunities that will inevitably arise.
However, it doesn’t mean you should jump on this opportunity thoughtlessly. Going composable is an expensive and challenging task. So instead of replatforming in one big go, modernize your stack as the need arises. With Alokai, you can benefit from the unparalleled flexibility and scalability of composable commerce with minimal risks, step by step.