At Aries Solutions, we have the largest number of successful composable commerce projects in North America. Our experience taught us that companies should be prepared before going composable, and we highly recommend you be clear on the differences between “composable” and “MACH” before you dive in. Here are ten things you should consider before making the switch.
1. Data Modeling is Critical
Most composable systems come as a blank slate. Rather than making assumptions about what fields you need, resulting in unused items taking up space and slowing down performance, composable platforms allow users to add the fields that match their business needs instead. As a result, data modeling, including content, product, cart, and all aspects of the commerce ecosystem, becomes a larger initial task and incredibly important in a composable setup. Since data flows across multiple systems and channels, such as mobile, desktop, and other touchpoints, you need to plan how data is structured and shared carefully. Unlike traditional systems where a WYSIWYG webpage editor might suffice, composable commerce requires thoughtful data architecture to avoid fragmentation and create consistency across UIs.
2. Know Your Requirements and Business Goals
Having a successful composable commerce project hinges on a well-defined set of requirements and a manageable group of stakeholders. The underlying systems are unopinionated, so you can’t let the platform dictate the solution, which, honestly, is a terrible business decision anyway. Instead, you must define the goals and requirements of the project. This process of defining a new digital experience can be exciting, and it feels as though there are endless possibilities. Be warned – uncontrolled scope creep, driven by too many parties trying to add features, can easily inflate costs and delay timelines. A focused, minimal first launch enables you to get to market faster and encourages strict prioritization, leading to a more impactful solution. Additional features and functionality can be added in later phases; this freedom to iterate is a key feature to going composable.
Participating in an Aries Composable Confidence assessment can help define those requirements before the project begins. This assessment helps companies drill down and understand what is truly needed for success, setting a solid foundation and avoiding unnecessary complexity or rework during the project.
3. Double-Check That RFP
If your RFP is a spreadsheet with every possible requirement imaginable, you are not ready for composable (or any replatform). Composable commerce is a buy-and-build solution. You buy the standard pieces and build the parts that make your company unique.
By asking for every possible feature you can think of, your RFP will reward quantity over quality. In this case, an all-in-one solution may check more boxes on your sheet, but it will be hard, expensive, and maybe impossible to customize. You will forfeit a bespoke tailored experience to gain mediocre features that will rarely be used. Meanwhile, the composable vendors may assume you need everything, resulting in every component being added and a large build estimate, making composable feel expensive and out of reach.
As mentioned above, asking for everything without clarity or prioritization is also a sign that the true requirements are unknown. Rather than buying what everyone else recommends, participating in a requirements assessment can drill down to which items will actually move the needle, increase sales, and delight your customers.
Just as a good restaurant curates its menu for a better dining experience, companies should curate their requirements to match what they actually need and, most importantly, focus on unique experiences that create loyalty by consistently driving customers to their brand and products.
4. You Can Start Small
One of the advantages of composable commerce is that you don’t have to purchase everything upfront. You can start with a couple of core necessities like commercetools and a NextJS frontend, then expand to add search, content, and other capabilities over time. This incremental approach is ideal for companies transitioning from startup platforms like Shopify or WooCommerce, allowing them to jump directly to enterprise-grade capabilities without getting overwhelmed. While there are intermediate, min-market ecommerce platforms that seem like a good value and logical next step, paying for two replatforms will outweigh any cost savings and benefit.
5. Use Starter Kits and Templates Cautiously
Prebuilt websites, mobile apps, and integrations can help speed up a project, but they should be evaluated cautiously.
Ensure that any pre-built items don’t stand in the way of important customizations and requirements. Some can be too opinionated and force a “MACH-Monolith” by tightly coupling services.
Also, lean into accelerators that offer open-source code or can clearly demonstrate coding best practices, such as API Specs and Test coverage (such as the offerings from Aries Labs available on GitHub). In a rush to capitalize on the composable movement, some companies have built demo-level projects that look great during a sales cycle or video but completely fall apart when used in a real production implementation. Talk to a trusted partner with experience in composable before assuming you can use a starter kit for your project.
6. Microservices Are Not Always Required
Microservices are great. They offer improved scalability, deployment options, and coordination between large teams of developers. For this reason, it’s great that companies offer APIs built on microservices. However, implementing microservices in your own architecture isn’t mandatory. Depending on the project details, a successful composable stack could use edge networks and serverless functions to achieve the same level of scalability with less effort and smaller ongoing maintenance requirements. This keeps costs in check while still allowing the system to scale effortlessly.
7. Vendor Integration Needs Planning
Composable commerce means you will integrate several specialized vendors. This requires careful planning and an understanding of how each system’s data model aligns. Different vendors may use different conventions and standards, making early mapping and integration efforts crucial to prevent roadblocks later in the project.
Some critical items can be missed when switching from an all-in-one solution that attempts to handle all requirements for smaller companies to an enterprise-focused composable stack. Everyone knows they need payment processing, but also consider requirements like taxes, fraud protection, and operational emails. Ensure all these essential integrations are accounted for from the beginning to avoid surprises later.
It’s important to keep things simple. While it may be easier to design a complex architecture, building a simple and easy-to-maintain system is much harder. Rather than relying on large nightly CRON jobs and massive ETL processes, integrations should be straightforward and event-based. This approach reduces complexity, enhances maintainability, and provides better responsiveness throughout the system.
8. Business Complexity vs Composable Complexity
The flexibility of composable commerce is its greatest strength but also a key challenge. Each component requires integration and testing, and each line of code written requires maintenance. The reward is a fully tailored experience that can handle even the most complex business requirements.
If you have a basic t-shirt shop that will be exactly the same as every other t-shirt shop, then an all-in-one solution is your best choice. It will be easier to stand up and work with.
However, if you have unique or complex requirements or want something fully bespoke that makes your brand stand out from the crowd, this is where composable shines. Composable is more complex for very simple websites, but it’s actually less effort for complex projects, projects building something unique, custom, new, or innovative. The ability to tailor every aspect of the system to meet your unique needs provides a significant advantage in differentiating your brand and delivering a unique customer experience.
It’s crucial to choose composable because your business needs it, not simply because it’s trendy or popular. The added flexibility should have a clear impact on your business’s growth. A tech stack should always be chosen for its ability to address your unique challenges, not because you are blindly following a trend.
9. Expect Organizational Changes
Composable commerce doesn’t just change your software, it changes how teams work. Change management should be part of the project plan from day one to ensure a smooth transition. Not only will things change after launch, but preparing for those changes during implementation is essential. Your organization needs a collaborative approach between marketing, merchandising, engineering, and content teams.
Make sure the internal team is involved in the process and participates all the way through, even if the project will be built by a systems integrator (SI). Ensure the company you work with will do knowledge transfers and teach your team about the new systems and composable best practices. Teams should be aligned around workflows and processes that work during the transition and in the long term.
10. A Strong Partner Can Make All the Difference
Composable commerce is a very different paradigm than monolith replatforms. Since it is not a one-size-fits-all solution, extra thought is required to take full advantage of composable. There is an art to designing a well-performing solution. This is very different from prescriptive, out-of-the-box monoliths where you can throw inexperienced developers at a problem, have them follow a standard playbook, and stand up a generic but functional website. For many legacy SIs, this falls outside their business model and expertise, for this reason, SIs with no composable experience tend to price incorrectly and fail at delivering.
We’ve heard that a million monkeys at a million keyoards could produce the complete works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know that is not true.
– Robert Wilensky, former EECS Professor at UC Berkely
This has given composable a reputation of being risky or expensive, but there is nothing further from the truth. Composable is more equipped to handle hard requirements and tight deadlines. The MACH tools make it possible to deliver complex or unique requirements in shorter timelines with smaller budgets than building everything from scratch and avoid the mediocrity and compromise of monoliths. This only happens if you work with people who have experience and understand what it takes to launch a successful composable commerce project in this new space. Legacy development agencies need to adapt or stick to working with legacy monoliths.
Partnering with an experienced agency like Aries Solutions can guide you through the nuances and complexities of going composable. Having experts who understand the typical pitfalls, industry best practices, and how to customize solutions for specific needs can make the difference between a costly trial-and-error approach and a streamlined transformation.
These are just ten of the items Aries has learned being a 100% composable-focused agency. It’s impossible to share everything through content and media, which is why we offer workshops, help, and instructions for anyone planning a composable commerce project. Composable commerce promises unmatched flexibility, scalability, and a fully custom solution for a fraction of the cost of building it from scratch, but planning, coordination, and expertise are essential for success.