If you’ve run an online store for any amount of time, you’ll know that customers don’t just value your products — they value the experience they get when they buy them. 

Memorable ecommerce experiences require creativity (your marketing and content),  flexibility (your tech stack), and your content management architecture. And yet, despite the need for flexibility, many ecommerce businesses still rely on outdated, inflexible tech stacks to power their online stores: an approach that not only limits the impact of their content on customers, but doesn't prepare them for future digital content challenges.

Maybe product pages aren’t loading fast enough? Maybe you want to integrate video reviews? Or maybe there’s an untapped cohort of customers in another country who can’t currently buy from you? There are plenty of ways that inflexible software can hurt the ecommerce experience and, if your existing CMS isn’t cutting it, it might be time to do things differently — by making the jump to a solution optimized for composable commerce. 

That not only means migrating your entire commerce and content infrastructure from its old platform to another — but embracing composability: a new way of thinking about digital content, and how your customers experience it. 

A composable commerce migration is a little bit like moving house. Anyone who’s moved in the real world will understand how complicated the process can be. You’ll not only need to find a property that meets your various social and professional needs, but transport all your belongings safely, without losing or breaking anything, and make sure everything is put in the right place at the other end. 

Don’t panic! With a little planning and the right resources, you’ll not only make the jump to composable commerce smoothly, but open up a universe of genuinely exciting content possibilities.

In this post, we’re going to explore what it means to make your ecommerce framework composable — including how composable commerce is different from legacy approaches and the practical steps you’ll need to take in order to execute your composable commerce migration successfully.

Composable commerce defined 

Simply put, composable commerce is an approach to online retail in which you assemble multiple modular components to create exactly the tech stack you want for your business and its customers. Built on a network of interconnected microservices, composable commerce represents a new way of thinking about online retail that prioritizes content flexibility and future-proofing. 

But, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. The best way to understand the value of composable commerce is to first understand where ecommerce software architecture has been over the past decade — and where it’s going. 

Monolithic commerce

Legacy commerce software architecture is described as ‘monolithic’ because it’s built on an all-in-one solution provided by a single vendor, usually for a single purpose such as powering a website or mobile app. In a traditional monolithic commerce platform, the backend coding layer is tightly coupled to the frontend presentation layer, which is also known as the “head.” 

While monolithic commerce systems offer out-of-the-box packaged business capabilities that typically enable you to get your online store up and running quickly, they don’t give you any scope to adjust or evolve your offering because you're locked in to the features that the vendor ships. Monolithic systems also require a degree of coding know-how in order to upload and edit content without disrupting the backend code tangled up with the presentation layer. 

The advantage of a monolithic solution is that you know exactly what you’re getting, and therefore, exactly what kind of experience your customers will have when they make purchases. However, that also means your commerce architecture is inflexible, difficult to scale, difficult to innovate with, and can incur a higher cost over the long term because you will, at some point, need to adapt to a changing market. 

But if monolithic commerce isn’t working for you, what’s the alternative?

Headless commerce

The next step on from monolithic commerce is headless commerce. 

In headless architecture, there is no front end or head — you build your presentation layer from scratch and communication between your bespoke head and your back end is handled by an application programming interface (API). 

In a headless commerce environment, it’s easier to work with content, and integrate functionalities that enhance user experiences. You could add a frontend tool that lets you reuse product images across different online channels such as phones, wearables, and store displays, or you could integrate a translation tool for multiple languages, or a tool to display prices in foreign currencies. 

The key to headless commerce is that it leverages modularity. While your content is still coming from the same place (your CMS, for example), you’ve got the flexibility to customize experiences on the frontend presentation layer. 

The jump from monolithic to the more modular, and visually flexible, headless commerce solution brings us back to the notion of composability. So, let’s explore why it might be the best option for your ecommerce needs. 

Composable commerce

Composable commerce architecture, leveraging a composable content platform, makes every part of your tech stack, across the front end and back end, modular. There’s no pre-packaged head presentation layer, and no prepackaged backend administrative layer — you build or select those individually based on your requirements. 

A composable commerce approach gives both developers and content teams freedom to customize — they simply find the modules they want to use, and integrate them as part of the back end or front end. Even better, composable commerce offers room for continuous improvement: if you want to swap in a superior module down the line, you can just plug it into the stack via an API when it suits you.

With that in mind, composable commerce is all about microservices or, more specifically, creating an ecosystem of different microservices that work together to achieve your business and content goals. You could use Vercel to host your website, for example, Shopify for your shopping cart, and Contentful for content management. You put the components together like building blocks, with all communication between applications facilitated by a network of APIs. 

Composable commerce is an approach that requires a level of technical understanding, but that enables online retailers to keep pace with the shifting pressures of their industries — while optimizing user experiences and streamlining their infrastructure for cost efficiency.

Long story short, composable commerce architecture unlocks possibilities that older, legacy commerce approaches can’t, including:

• Visual customizability.

• Microservice ecosystems.

• Multi-channel content reusability.

• Future-proofed infrastructure.

So, if the reasons to transition are clear, the next question is: How do you shift your ecommerce approach to a composable commerce model? Let’s talk about migration. 

Approaches to composable commerce migration

While it’s not quite the same as loading all your belongings into boxes and hiring a moving van, a composable commerce migration still requires you to think about the manner in which you move the different parts of your ecommerce infrastructure (not least digital content) to their new home. 

Migration in parallel 

A parallel approach to migration would have you develop and build your new composable commerce tech stack in its entirety, right alongside its monolithic predecessor. You’d perform thorough tests on your composable system’s components as you add them, and ensure everything was working as intended before switching (in theory) seamlessly, in one go.  

The advantage of parallel migration is that you’d know how the new composable environment was going to function prior to migration, and therefore minimize the risk of disruption. On the other hand, parallel development might stretch out the overall migration timeline, since you’d need to build and test your new environment comprehensively prior to going live, and it would also involve higher costs since you’d need to pay for the maintenance of both the old and new systems at once. Similarly, if you missed some issue during testing, or an unexpected problem emerged post-launch, it would be difficult — if not impossible — to roll back to your old architecture. 

Migration in phases

A phased migration leverages the inherent modularity and flexibility of composable commerce architecture in a module-by-module transition that focuses on operational efficiency, and on providing value as quickly as possible. 

If you’re migrating from a monolithic content management system, for example, the first phase of that process would be the decoupling of the front end from the back end. Decoupling frees content presentation from its underlying code, and opens up the possibilities of composability, via the integration of microservices. 

Following that first step, you’d systematically replace the core functionalities of your monolithic CMS, for example, before moving on to the value-adding components that will fill out your microservice ecosystem. Each phase should be planned: you’ll need to think about the value that each component provides, and assess and test continuously as you migrate. 

Migrating in phases lets you minimize downtime while progressively testing the efficacy of your new environment. If something isn’t working in a phased approach, you can always roll back without incurring too significant a delay. In fact, it’s possible to run multiple CMSes at the same time, which means you could extend your phased migration timeline for as long as you need to address any challenges. This approach is one of the most common ways of moving to the Contentful platform. 

Executing your migration: A step-by-step guide

So, what should your migration actually look like? Let’s look at an example of composable content migration that takes you through the process, step by step. 

1) Defining your migration goals

We talked about some of the benefits of composable commerce architecture above, but to make your migration work, you’ll need to connect those to your organization’s content and business objectives. Common migration goals include:

• Addressing results of a technical gap analysis.

• Removing the limitations of a monolithic CMS.

• Improving user experiences.

• Increasing revenue or conversion rates.

• Future-proofing.

2) Assembling a migration team   

The team that oversees your composable commerce migration should be familiar with both your existing system and its replacement, and include both technical and creative skill sets. You’ll need developers and engineers to handle integration, coding, and testing, but you’ll also need creative contributors — editors, designers, and content modellers — who can help you build and optimize content experiences in the new architecture.

3) Conducting a tech review

Conduct a review of your current software architecture to identify gaps in functionality or opportunities to uplift user experiences. In a monolithic system, you should also consider that functionalities are limited to the existing framework. Even if they’re getting the job done right now, you won’t have any way to integrate new components as your organization grows or as market demands change. 

In addition to mapping the functionality of your system, you should also think about the content you use and how it’s organized. For example, where will your digital asset management (DAM) module be in your composable architecture, and will this help you execute your content strategy?

4) Identifying new microservices

Research and select the modular components and microservices that will make up your composable architecture. Alongside the core functionalities of your website, you may want to add new components such as a currency converter, an internal search engine, video streaming, a delivery tracker, secure payment gateways, and so on. The modularity of your composable commerce stack means that you’ll have plenty of options, but it’s important to think about the advantages and disadvantages of different permutations. 

Remember, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to create a composable commerce platform that exactly matches the features and functionalities of your existing system. Be prepared to deal with disparities as they emerge, and be open to developing workarounds.

The Contentful Marketplace offers integrations to common services and platforms, with apps that can simplify your microservices layers, such as the Shopify and commercetools apps. 

5) Performing cost analysis

Explore the cost of building and migrating to your new composable stack. Bear in mind that it might require greater upfront investment if you’ll need to research, model, and develop your new content infrastructure prior to launch — in contrast to the out-of-the-box functionality of a typical monolithic legacy system. 

The advantage, however, is that composability pays off handsomely over time by helping you scale more smoothly, adapt to market demands, and jump on new commercial opportunities. 

6) Planning your migration strategy

Decide what your migration process will look like — it may resemble some form of the phased and parallel approaches we outlined above. 

Certain factors will influence your strategy, including examples and lessons from similar migrations, available budget and resources, and the way you model content for your new system. It’s worth remembering that content from monolithic systems is usually not structured, which can make the migration to a composable content platform tricky — and require some parts of the migration to be manual. 

Similarly, certain priorities may affect the order of your migration, such as the need to migrate core functionalities and essential data first. 

7) Building your composable system

Assemble your new composable commerce tech stack from the modular components that you’ve researched and modelled. 

You’ll need to have access to, and understand how to work with, the relevant APIs in order to create your new composable system. There are plenty of resources available to help you build your new content architecture, including dedicated guides for building ecommerce websites. 

8) Migrating to the new system

Execute your migration plan in alignment with the approach that you’ve chosen, with core functionalities moving first. 

Your migration process will involve sub-stages, including, for example, performing a content audit to map exactly what content you’ll be transitioning to your new architecture. It may be the case that certain content pieces are surplus to requirements and can be deleted, refreshed, or merged with other types of content — a migration is a convenient time to do that. 

And, on that note, no composable commerce approach is perfect, and no migration is ever completely problem-free, so you should back up critical data to protect against loss or damage during the move. You may also have to remove any proprietary elements from your content that were applied by your monolithic CMS in order to make them readable by the new composable architecture.  

9) Ongoing testing

The testing phase of the migration shouldn’t be an afterthought. Testing is critical to making sure that your new architecture addresses the shortcomings of your previous system, and delivers the experiences you want for your customers — faster load times, better payment security, and so on. 

You’ll need to set out a systematic plan that includes the types of tests that you’ll apply to the new system, and the metrics you’ll use to gauge success. Your testing schedule should begin with the first stage or phase of your migration, and be ongoing throughout the process so that you can catch emerging issues before they cause too much disruption. 

10) Launching your composable commerce framework

If you’re migrating your online store to its new home in phases, there may not be a definitive “launch” moment, but you’ll still need to apply checks and balances as the various components of your framework drop into place and go live. These include:

• A final review of content, including checks for accuracy and completeness. 

• Verification that the payment system is functioning. 

• Implementation of a URL redirect list in order to protect SEO rankings. 

• Employee training on the new CMS and content creation process. 

Go composable with Contentful 

We understand how powerful composability can be for retailers — not just for selling products and services, but shaping sales experiences across every online channel. We’ve helped some of the world’s biggest brands migrate from monolithic systems to composable commerce systems, leveraging an API-first platform that lets users innovate and explore technical possibilities, and then create, use, and reuse content across online channels seamlessly. 

You won’t be making the move alone. We can help you implement your migration plan for the Contentful Composable Content Platform and guide your team on how to get the most out of the components that you choose to power your online store. As your business grows, we’ll help you scale your ecommerce content with it, ensuring you’re always ready to adapt to the demands of the market, and to the expectations of your customers.

Ready to begin your composable journey? Get in touch today to take your first step. 

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