What is Composable Commerce?

Composable Commerce: The Most Advanced Commerce Architecture?

Composable Commerce is among the latest architectural approaches for commerce platforms. It offers companies greater flexibility and resilience—but it also comes with its own set of challenges. In this article, we’ll explain how Composable Commerce platforms work, how to implement them successfully, and what trends will shape the future of digital commerce.   

What Is Composable Commerce?

Composable Commerce refers to a modular architectural approach for commerce platforms. Developers combine individual components as needed to build a flexible, easily scalable application—a best-of-breed strategy.

Typical services integrated into the platform include Product Information Management (PIM), Content Management Systems (CMS), checkout and payment modules, customer service tools, as well as fulfillment and logistics systems.

This approach is especially relevant not just for e-commerce, but for retail businesses with complex omnichannel strategies, as it enables them to tailor their commerce software with precision.

Unlike traditional monolithic platforms that are hard to customize, applications within a Composable Commerce platform can be modified independently. This allows for easier integrations and faster innovation—without disrupting ongoing business operations.

Watch the video

How a Composable Commerce Architecture Works

Composable Commerce is typically based on MACH architecture—short for Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, and Headless.

• Microservices represent business processes in independent, easily interchangeable modules.
• API-first ensures seamless communication between modules and with external systems.
• Cloud-native hosting enables scalability, security, and continuous updates.
• Headless separates the frontend from the backend, offering maximum freedom in crafting user experiences.

These architectural principles are the foundation for the transformative benefits of Composable Commerce.

Comparison of Commerce Platform Architectures

The technological development in e-commerce has accelerated massively in recent years. Traditional architectures dominated for a long time. Headless architectures then became established in the mid-2010s, and Composable Commerce emerged at the end of the decade. Autonomous Commerce is now the latest generation of platforms in the starting blocks. The architectures primarily differ in their degree of flexibility and technological openness.

Traditional architectures tightly interlock the frontend, backend, and data. This was suitable for a time when technological changes were rarely necessary, and systems remained unchanged for decades.

Headless architectures introduced more flexibility: they separate the frontend from the backend, allowing content to be delivered more flexibly and user experiences to be more easily adapted to new channels.

Composable Commerce takes this a step further. It brings agility and rapid development to the backend: developers can use the best services, quickly swap them out, and keep pace with a high rate of innovation.

Autonomous Commerce is currently emerging as the latest generation of commerce platforms. Building on the composable approach, artificial intelligence is integrated here to increasingly autonomously control and optimize processes. With its ACE platform, Emporix is one of the first providers to consistently implement this AI-supported Commerce Orchestration.

The most important differences at a glance

5 Benefits of Composable Commerce for B2B Companies

B2B merchants, in particular—with complex business processes, robust digital infrastructures, and custom pricing logic—stand to gain significantly:

Greater Flexibility in System Integration

Easily combine solutions and integrate existing ERP, CRM, or PIM systems seamlessly.

Faster Time-to-Market for New Features

New modules and features can be developed and deployed independently, drastically reducing time-to-market.

Improved Customer Experience Through Tailored Solutions

Decoupling the backend simplifies the creation of custom frontends and personalized buying experiences. 

Scalability for International Growth

Cloud-based microservices deliver high availability and performance, supporting dynamic scaling.   

Future-Proofing Through Tech Independence

Modularity and API-first design prevent vendor lock-in and support continuous innovation. 

Deep Dive: How Can Your Business Benefit from Composable Commerce?

Composable commerce: What requirements must companies meet?

Not every business is ready to switch to Composable Commerce overnight. Technological foundations must be in place, organizational structures adapted, and team mindsets shifted.

Technical Foundations

Companies need to build cloud-native infrastructure and orchestrate APIs to connect and scale components. Legacy applications should be microservice-compatible—or replaced gradually to keep transition costs low.

Organization & Mindset

Composable Commerce requires new thinking. IT and business teams must collaborate closely using agile methods to deliver iterative results. DevOps plays a key role in ensuring continuous platform development and operation.

Challenges in Implementing Composable Commerce

The advantages are undisputed, but like any technological approach, Composable Commerce also brings its own weaknesses and limitations that companies should proactively address. Emporix has identified three central hurdles in Composable Commerce projects.

Technical Complexity

With Composable Commerce, many independent microservices must be orchestrated. Without middleware and an integration layer, incorporating new services can become costly. As the number of changes and functions increases, it also becomes difficult to maintain an overview and control—a risk to compliance, agility, and innovation. Emporix therefore works with solid processes and detailed documentation from the start of the project.

Project & Change Management

At Emporix, we involve relevant stakeholders early in the project to consider their requirements when designing the platform. Many companies also underestimate the effort required for change communication and training. Information is crucial for the acceptance of a new commerce platform among employees. We advise our customers on communication and ensure with targeted training that employees quickly find their way around the new system.

Cost & Resource Planning

Realistic budget and resource planning is indispensable if a Composable Commerce platform, with or without AI, is to meet expectations. Companies often have incorrect ideas about the initial investments necessary in technology, integrations, and skilled personnel. These tend to be higher than with traditional platforms but pay for themselves over time. Emporix creates early transparency and planning security here with a clear cost breakdown.

How to Transition to a Composable Commerce Platform?

Switching to Composable Commerce is a major project. To stay focused and deliver results quickly, companies need structured planning.

Here’s a 7-step roadmap to guide your transition: Emporix has taken the Composable approach further with its ACE platform. We’ll highlight how our solution fits into each step.

1. Analyze Your Current State & Define Goals

• Take stock: Determine which digital systems are currently in use in your organization. Typical applications include CMS, online shop, PIM, and ERP systems.
• Identify weaknesses: Gain clarity about the weak points of your current setup: Where is performance suffering? Where are integrations difficult? Which functions are missing?
• Set business goals: Define and prioritize the goals you want to achieve with the transition, such as publishing digital offerings faster, expanding into new markets more easily, or offering greater personalization. 

We offer a modular commerce platform based on the concept of composable commerce and integrated AI. The platform is aimed at B2B companies and can be configured for individual goals.

2. Plan Your Composable Strategy & Architecture

• Design target architecture: Which components should your future platform contain (commerce engine, CMS, search, or payment systems)?
• Make-or-buy decisions: Decide which modules should be developed internally and which should be sourced externally to make optimal use of time and resources.
• Define your integration strategy: Determine how integrations and data flows should be orchestrated: via middleware or directly via APIs?

We offer an API-centric commerce engine that integrates seamlessly into existing system landscapes and ensures consistently high controllability even in growing ecosystems.

3. Select Best-of-Breed Components

• Make a preliminary selection: Based on your most important use cases, create an initial list of suitable solutions.
• Evaluate providers (RFI/RFP): Check the solutions for important criteria such as scalability, API capability, support quality, and total cost of ownership.
• Perform proof of concept: Test in a pilot project whether the selected solutions fit together technically and functionally as components in the sense of a composable approach.

Our core commerce engine can be flexibly combined with leading PIM, CMS, or search solutions—ideal for a future-proof, best-of-breed architecture.

4. Define an MVP & Set Up Agile Project

• Define a minimum viable product (MVP): Define a minimum marketable range of functions with which you can start initial practical tests.
• Choose an agile project approach: Use methods such as Scrum or SAFe to deliver increasingly better results in short iterations.
• Build a cross-functional team: Put together a team of business, IT, and UX/UI experts who can quickly adapt and deploy services.

Our platform is ideal for MVP projects because individual services can be quickly activated and customized—for example, for dynamic pricing logic or automated workflows.

5. Implement & Integrate

• Introduce or connect microservices: Integrate new services and existing systems into your target architecture step by step.
• Configure and test APIs: Ensure that all interfaces function stably and that data is exchanged reliably.
• Coordinate orchestration and data flows: Define how systems interact with each other and how information is processed.
• Plan security, monitoring, and performance: Set up a reliable operating and monitoring concept right from the start.

Our platform features an integrated orchestration layer that intelligently connects commerce functions—no separate middleware is required.

6. Go Live & Scale Iteratively

• Start a soft launch or pilot phase: Begin with a limited rollout, for example in one country or one product category.
• Establish feedback loops: Continuously analyze user experiences, performance, and conversion rates to identify areas for optimization.
• Scale gradually: Gradually add additional modules, markets, or features.

The rollout with Emporix can be carried out in phases because services can be expanded, exchanged, or newly developed independently of one another.

7. Operate & Optimize Continuously

• Establish DevOps structures: Set up a DevOps team to closely integrate development and operations.
• Monitor KPIs: Keep a constant eye on key metrics such as time-to-market, system availability, and conversion rate.
• Integrate new technologies: Flexibly add innovative features to your platform, such as AI-based search, recommendation engines, or automated order management.

We roll out new features and integrations quickly and continuously optimize our platform—for maximum agility and sustainable competitiveness for our users.

Looking Ahead: Orchestration Is the Next Step After Composability

Composable Commerce is a milestone in the development of digital commerce platforms. This approach gives companies flexibility and innovative strength: they can use the applications that work best for them, release new features faster, and integrate digital innovations more easily.

But flexibility comes at a price: the technical complexity of the backend increases massively over time, slowing down the speed you once gained and threatening to become a stumbling block.

ACE is already establishing itself as a successor architecture: it retains the flexibility of the composable approach, but introduces a central AI-supported control layer that intelligently eliminates technical redundancies, ensures transparency even in complex digital infrastructures, and offers a wide range of automation options—from customer registration and order processing to price management.

Want to take a look into the future and learn more about commerce orchestration? Book a free demo of Emporix ACE.

Book a demo