What is Composable Commerce and How Can it Benefit B2B Businesses?

According to Gartner, those that adopt a Composable Commerce approach will outpace competition by 80%.

In the ever-evolving landscape of eCommerce, businesses are constantly seeking innovative ways to remain competitive and adaptable to changing market dynamics. Composable commerce, a cutting-edge approach to eCommerce architecture, is rapidly emerging as the go-to solution for achieving these objectives.

What is Composable Commerce?

Composable commerce is a new way of building online stores that focuses on being flexible and easy to change. Unlike older methods where everything was bundled together in a complex way, composable commerce lets businesses pick and choose different parts, like inventory management or payment systems, and put them together in a way that works best for them.

This approach is different from traditional, monolithic systems. With composable commerce, companies can easily adjust their online stores to meet their specific needs and keep up with new trends or what their customers want. Because each part of the store is separate, it's easier to make changes or add new features quickly.

Monolithic, or legacy, systems often tie all the parts of an online store together tightly, which makes it hard to change anything without affecting everything else. But with composable commerce, you can change or update parts without disrupting the whole system.

Composable commerce versus monolithic commerce

Composable commerce is based on MACH principles (Microservices-based, API-first, Cloud-native, Headless), which means it uses the latest technology to make online stores more efficient and flexible. It's a smarter way to build and manage online stores, giving businesses the power to adapt and grow in today's fast-paced market.

According to tech research experts Gartner, those who embrace this approach can outpace their competition by achieving an impressive 80% increase in the speed of implementing new features.

How does Composable Commerce benefit B2B businesses?

Below we explore some of the key business benefits of composable commerce, with a focus on its implications for B2B enterprises.

Scalability

One of the primary advantages of adopting composable commerce for B2B businesses is scalability. Traditional monolithic eCommerce systems often struggle to handle growing demands. In contrast, composable commerce's microservices-based architecture allows companies to scale individual components independently. This means that as your business expands, you can effortlessly add or modify services without affecting the entire system. Scalability becomes a seamless process, ensuring that your platform can meet the demands of a growing customer base.

Flexibility and Adaptability

Composable commerce offers unparalleled flexibility and adaptability, making it an ideal choice for B2B enterprises. By decoupling various components of your eCommerce platform, you gain the freedom to replace or upgrade individual elements without overhauling the entire system. This agility enables you to respond swiftly to market changes, customer preferences, and emerging technologies, ensuring that your business remains competitive in a dynamic marketplace.

Enhanced Security

Security is a paramount concern for B2B businesses that handle sensitive customer data, transactions, and confidential information. Composable commerce, with its API-first architecture, enables robust security measures. By implementing security protocols at the API level, you can safeguard data integrity and protect against cyber threats more effectively. This granular approach to security allows for better control and monitoring, reducing the risk of data breaches and ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements.

Improved Stability

Stability is crucial for B2B businesses, as any downtime or system failure can have far-reaching consequences. Composable commerce, built on cloud-native principles, enhances system stability. Cloud-based infrastructure offers high availability, redundancy and automatic failover capabilities, reducing the likelihood of disruptions. Moreover, the isolation of microservices means that a fault in one component is less likely to impact the entire system, ensuring a stable and reliable eCommerce platform.

Faster Time-to-Market

In the competitive world of B2B commerce, getting products and services to market quickly is essential. Composable commerce accelerates time-to-market by enabling rapid development and deployment of new features and functionalities. With reusable microservices and headless architecture, you can experiment with innovative ideas, create personalised buyer experiences, and roll out updates faster than ever before, gaining a competitive edge in your industry.

Case Study /

Watco

9xb developed a custom B2B eCommerce solution for Watco, a UK-based manufacturer of high-performance paint and repair products, using Composable Commerce. This involved integrating advanced site search, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central ERP, Adyen payments platform, and Akeneo PIM with a multisite-capable eCommerce platform. Central to this was 9xb's Peracto platform, instrumental in launching eCommerce stores across France, the UK, Germany, Eire, and Poland. Peracto's composable architecture enables Watco to continuously evolve their offerings to align with changing customer needs and business objectives, maintaining their competitive edge.

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Case Study /

Watco

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How could Composable Commerce benefit your business?

9xb excels in delivering best-in-class B2B eCommerce with Composable Commerce, offering key advantages like scalability, flexibility, enhanced security and faster market entry. Tailored to your business needs, we provide two main approaches:

Hybrid Approach:

Utilising cloud-based platforms such as Shopify Plus or BigCommerce, this method connects top third-party applications through APIs, facilitating a swift expansion of your online presence. While effective, this approach does have platform-specific constraints and often relies on middleware which may impact real-time performance of connected systems.

Peracto Solution:

This fully composable option enables businesses to evolve continuously, adapting to customer needs. It integrates new services seamlessly, synchronises existing systems and delivers user experiences that align perfectly with your business goals.

Our experienced team specialises in delivering future-proof eCommerce solutions for ambitious B2B companies, fostering agility and growth with innovative composable commerce strategies.

Where to start when considering a Composable Commerce solution?

If you're planning a new online store, 9xb's Discovery service is a great place to start, especially if you're interested in Composable Commerce. Our Discovery process helps you figure out what you need, gives you expert advice, sets out clear steps for your project and helps you plan for how to get there.

In our Discovery workshops, we'll talk about what you need, offer professional and technical advice, and document business requirements for your online store. Our design team will also work on creating exciting and user-friendly design concepts for you.

This whole process is all about making sure your online store does what you want it to do. It helps you stay on budget, avoid problems, and make good decisions, which is especially useful when building a flexible and customisable online store.

Case Study /

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Case Study /

Watco

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Ready to get started?

Reach out today for a free consultation and find out how 9xb can help you to accelerate the transformation of B2B eCommerce for your business, today.

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paper aeroplane

Ready to get started?

Get in touch

Reach out today for a free consultation and find out how 9xb can help you to accelerate the transformation of B2B eCommerce for your business, today.