What is Composable Commerce: The Flexible, Cost-Effective Future of E-Commerce

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Robert Scholz

Jan 21, 2025 • 13 min read

Welcome to the world of Composable Commerce – a truly modular framework that enables brands to build highly tailored shopping experiences without the hefty costs of legacy solutions.

In today’s fast-paced e-commerce landscape, businesses are constantly challenged to innovate, scale quickly, and personalize their offerings.

While traditional, monolithic platforms like Magento or a dual-platform approach (e.g., Magento plus Pimcore) have dominated the market for years, digital commerce platforms are rapidly gaining traction and proving to be more affordable in the long run.

Let’s dive into Composable Commerce.

What Is composable commerce?

Composable commerce is an approach to building an e-commerce ecosystem by connecting independent, specialized modules (microservices) instead of relying on a single, large-scale platform. Each microservice handles a specific part of the e-commerce operations (product information, payments, recommendations, analytics, etc.), which can be integrated seamlessly via APIs. This contrasts sharply with the „all-in-one” approach of monolithic platforms such as Magento, where every aspect of the store is built into one massive system. This flexibility allows businesses to innovate and customize their business models to thrive in dynamic markets.

Core principles of composable commerce and packaged business capabilities

  • Headless architecture: Also known as headless commerce, the front end (customer-facing layer) is separated from the back end (business logic, data). This means developers can update or redesign the user interface without disturbing the entire e-commerce backend. This approach allows for greater flexibility, scalability, and faster innovation, facilitating a more modern, cloud-based system where services communicate via APIs, thus enhancing customer experiences and enabling businesses to swiftly adapt to changing market demands.

  • Microservices: Each module (e.g., payment gateway, shopping cart, product recommendations) operates independently. One service’s performance or updates won’t necessarily disrupt the rest of the system.

  • API-first communication: Modules communicate via APIs, making it simpler to plug in or replace specific services as needed—ideal for keeping costs down and maintaining agility.

  • Cloud scalability: You can scale resources on-demand, matching your store’s current traffic. This way, you only pay for what you use, instead of over-investing in infrastructure.

  • Flexible vendor choices: By choosing a “best-of-breed” strategy, you can integrate top-tier solutions for payments, marketing automation, or product information management without being locked into a single platform.

Composable commerce vs. traditional commerce

Composable commerce and traditional commerce represent two fundamentally different approaches to building digital commerce experiences. Traditional commerce platforms are monolithic, meaning all functionalities are tightly integrated into a single system. This can make them rigid and inflexible, often struggling to adapt to rapidly changing customer expectations and market trends.

In contrast, composable commerce embraces a modular approach, allowing businesses to construct their e-commerce infrastructure by assembling specialized components or microservices. This flexibility enables companies to mix and match capabilities to meet their specific business needs. For instance, a business might choose a best-of-breed payment gateway, a separate content management system, and a specialized product recommendation engine, all seamlessly integrated through APIs.

The key advantage of composable commerce lies in its adaptability. As customer expectations evolve, businesses can quickly swap out or upgrade individual components without overhauling their entire system. This modularity not only enhances scalability but also ensures that businesses can stay ahead of market trends and deliver personalized, cutting-edge experiences to their customers.

MACH architecture: The foundation of composable commerce

MACH architecture is the industry tech standard that underpins composable commerce solutions. It stands for Microservices-based, API-first, Cloud-native, and Headless—four principles that collectively enable businesses to build modular, scalable, and flexible e-commerce platforms.

Microservices-based architecture allows each component of the e-commerce platform to operate independently. This means that updates or changes to one service, such as the payment gateway, won’t disrupt the entire system. API-first design ensures that all components can communicate seamlessly, facilitating the integration of multiple vendors and technologies.

Being cloud-native means that the platform can scale resources on-demand, providing the flexibility to handle traffic spikes without over-investing in infrastructure. Finally, headless architecture decouples the front-end and back-end systems, allowing businesses to innovate and update the user interface without affecting the underlying business logic.

By leveraging MACH architecture, businesses can create composable commerce platforms tailored to their unique needs and customer expectations. This approach not only supports rapid innovation but also ensures seamless integration of best-of-breed solutions, making it easier to adapt to changing market conditions.

Why Is composable commerce more cost-effective?

  1. Pay-per-use functionality: With a composable commerce solution, you only pay for the modules you actually need. Rather than adopting a bulky system with dozens of unused features, you integrate the specific services that match your unique business model.

  2. Lower development and maintenance costs: When a particular feature requires an update or bug fix, you simply address that microservice. In monolithic setups, even small improvements can involve upgrading or testing the entire platform—which in turn inflates development hours and expenses.

  3. Elastic scalability: Seasonal spikes or unexpected traffic surges? Instead of overhauling your entire infrastructure, you allocate more cloud resources to specific modules (e.g., the checkout process or catalog search). This targeted approach avoids massive, costly upgrades across your whole system.

  4. Fewer painful migrations: If a component no longer meets your needs, you can replace it with another specialized service without a full-scale system migration. Traditional platforms often require large-scale reworks that are time-intensive and expensive.

  5. Best-of-breed quality: When you add a highly specialized tool for product search, marketing automation, or analytics, you’re not compromising on quality. In fact, using dedicated, optimized solutions for each e-commerce function often reduces long-term maintenance and troubleshooting costs.

Going beyond Magento & Pimcore

Some organizations attempt to address the limitations of a single monolith by pairing two large platforms—like Magento for e-commerce and Pimcore for content or digital asset management.

Although this might look convenient at first, it often results in:

• High Integration Costs: Keeping both platforms fully synchronized can be time-consuming and expensive, especially when each releases new updates or security patches. • Operational Complexity: Troubleshooting becomes more involved—figuring out whether Magento, Pimcore, or both are at fault can slow down the entire team. • Limited Extensibility: Adding any new specialized feature often creates a juggling act, introducing conflicts or redundancies that ramp up development costs.

By contrast, Composable Commerce takes a more agile route. Instead of coupling two monolithic systems, you integrate best-of-breed microservices—like a dedicated commerce engine (e.g., Commercetools or Medusa), a PIM solution (Pimcore, Akeneo, or inRiver), an external search engine (Algolia or Elasticsearch), various payment gateways (Stripe, Adyen, or PayPal), and BNPL modules (Klarna, Affirm)—all tied together via APIs. Because each component can be upgraded or replaced independently, it’s more cost-efficient and straightforward to introduce additional tools, test new features, or swap out outdated modules.

Benefits of headless commerce you can’t ignore

  • Faster innovation: You can pilot or roll out new features in one service without waiting to upgrade or re-architect an entire system. This agility can be a game-changer in the rapidly evolving world of e-commerce.

  • Personalization on a deeper level: Pick and choose specialized components—like advanced product recommendation engines or dynamic pricing modules—that allow for truly unique customer experiences.

  • High resilience: If one microservice encounters a glitch, other parts of your store remain unaffected. This significantly reduces downtime and protects revenue.

  • Omnichannel integration: By leveraging an API-first design, connecting to various sales channels (physical stores, mobile apps, marketplaces) is smoother, ensuring a consistent brand experience wherever customers shop.

  • Lower total cost of ownership: Composable Commerce keeps costs in check by letting you invest specifically in areas of your business that need the most attention, rather than forcing you to maintain and update a monolithic structure.

  • Modularity: Packaged business capabilities (PBCs) allow for a highly modular approach, enabling businesses to quickly adapt to changing market demands.

Challenges of composable commerce

While the benefits of composable commerce are numerous, it does come with its own set of challenges. One of the primary hurdles is managing multiple vendors and technologies. Integrating various components and services can be complex and time-consuming, requiring a high level of coordination and expertise.

Another significant challenge is the need for a high degree of digital maturity. Businesses must invest in robust infrastructure and monitoring tools to manage and maintain a composable commerce platform effectively. This often necessitates skilled IT resources and a strategic approach to ensure all components work harmoniously.

Additionally, composable commerce can be more expensive than traditional commerce platforms, especially in the short term. The initial costs of integrating multiple specialized services and maintaining them can add up. However, the long-term benefits, such as increased flexibility, scalability, and the ability to quickly adapt to market changes, often outweigh these initial expenses.

Who benefits the most?

  • Scaling enterprises: Mid-size and large businesses looking to break free from rigid systems or accelerate innovation cycles can benefit from integrating specialized components like content management systems.

  • Global brands: Companies operating in multiple regions or countries, with complex localized requirements.

  • Omnichannel retailers: Those who sell through multiple channels—physical, online, marketplace—and need seamless data synchronization.

  • Firms emphasizing customization: From tailored checkout experiences to hyper-personalized marketing, any business aiming for top-tier customer experiences stands to gain from a composable approach.

Success stories

Several businesses have successfully implemented composable commerce platforms, reaping significant benefits and improvements. Take Burrow, for example, a brand specializing in modular, customizable furniture. By leveraging BigCommerce to create a composable commerce architecture, Burrow saw a substantial increase in sales and was able to customize their ecommerce site quickly and efficiently.

Another success story is Just Sunnies, a leading provider of high-quality eyewear. They utilized BigCommerce to create a unified, scalable e-commerce experience, resulting in a 15% increase in sales, a 32% increase in visits, and a 21% increase in conversion rate. These metrics highlight the potential of composable commerce to drive business growth, enhance customer experiences, and improve operational efficiency.

These examples demonstrate how adopting a composable commerce approach can help businesses create tailored e-commerce platforms that meet their unique needs and exceed customer expectations. By focusing on modularity and flexibility, companies can stay agile and competitive in the ever-evolving digital commerce landscape.

How to get started

  1. Set clear goals: Identify your core business objectives and pain points. Where do you need flexibility the most?

  2. Audit current solutions: Determine what parts of your existing ecosystem are valuable and which need replacing. Consider whether some legacy systems can be modularized.

  3. Research “best-of-breed” tools: Compare top solutions for each function—payment, inventory management, marketing automation—based on cost, features, and scalability, and consider how these software components can be integrated into your composable commerce architecture.

  4. Plan a phased migration: Transition gradually, focusing on the highest-priority improvements first. Avoid drastic overhauls that can disrupt your operations.

  5. Empower your team: Make sure you have the necessary talent in-house (or partner with an experienced vendor) to manage integrations, security measures, and ongoing development.

Why composable commerce architecture is the future

Composable commerce isn’t just another industry buzzword. It’s a transformative approach that helps you reduce operational expenses, innovate faster, and deliver standout customer experiences in a competitive e-commerce environment. Rather than building multiple platforms (like Magento alongside Pimcore) and wrestling with complicated integrations, you start with a modular foundation that includes packaged business capabilities (PBCs) designed for seamless plug-and-play functionality from day one.

Netguru’s expertise in composable commerce

At Netguru, we have extensive experience guiding businesses through every stage of composable e-commerce transformations. Whether you’re looking to replatform entirely or refine specific components of your online store, our specialists can help you pinpoint the best solutions, ensure smooth integrations, and unlock the full potential of a future-proof ecosystem.

If you’re striving for agility, cost efficiency, and a dynamic approach to innovation, Composable Commerce may just be the key to standing out—today and in the years ahead. Get in touch with us to learn how we can bring your vision to life.

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