It’s hard to imagine shopping can get easier than picking what you want for a couch, tapping a few buttons and having the order arrive right at your doorstep. The customer experience is something e-commerce companies spend a lot of time perfecting and refining to ensure customers have the smoothest possible experience from start to finish.
That’s been easier said than done for a long time, however: Due to the restrictions placed on them by many software providers, e-commerce companies aren’t always able to create seamless customer experiences. The reason is simple: That’s because many software packages used to build e-commerce platforms were locked down into standardized formats. If there was one element that wasn’t as good a fit for a company’s needs or new customer expectations would arise suddenly, there was practically nothing that could be done about it.
This meant that, for years, e-commerce companies had to settle for providing customers with experiences that were perfect in some respects, good enough in others and outright bad in other cases. It wasn’t ideal, but it was the only way things were done. Unless you could build your own code from the ground up — which comes with its own set of challenges — you and your customer base had to make some compromises. That’s starting to change with the advent of composable commerce.
What Does “Composable Commerce” Mean?
The philosophy of this design approach is to give companies the freedom and flexibility to create their tech stacks in the way they see fit. Rather than being forced to accept monolithic platforms, they can pick and choose the components that make the most sense for their needs, such as checkout, search or product catalog. Each touchpoint along the customer journey — from content management and payments to customer service — can be handled by its own distinct component or a combination of those connected by APIs.
Components in a composable environment are designed to live in the cloud and are tech-agnostic. These qualities mean they can be swapped in and out with little disruption based on the current need. It also means best-of-breed solutions can mesh with a company’s own homegrown applications. It all adds up to creating an eCommerce platform with all the right functionalities for the company’s needs without compromise.
At the end of the day, composable commerce is all about providing the best possible experience for your customers. It also helps you control costs and scale to meet the demands of the market with exceptional flexibility. To learn more about this concept and what it can do for you, take a look at the accompanying resource.
Infographic created by commercetools, a composable commerce platform company
