Composable Commerce: How Ecommerce Is Changing to Spur Innovation

<p>Build technology or buy it? For merchants looking to update their commerce experiences, it usually boils down to these two choices.</p><p>But sometimes, these two options offer a false choice. Building tends to be resource-heavy, demanding department coordination and a long-term plan to maintain and troubleshoot what you built.</p><p>On the other hand, you can buy a solution—but many organizations are understandably reluctant to rip and replace what they’ve already invested in the technology. What’s more, what you end up “buying” tends to be just enough to solve some problems, but not enough to solve your specific problem. One-size-fits-all solutions tend to not, well, “fit all.”</p><p>There’s a way out of this false dichotomy, and it's called composable commerce.</p><figure class="image image_resized" style="width:50%;"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dugcmkito/image/upload/v1671752999/Buildvs_Buy_Ebook_3f705404b8.png" alt="BuildvsBuyEbook.png" srcset="https://res.cloudinary.com/dugcmkito/image/upload/v1671752999/thumbnail_Buildvs_Buy_Ebook_3f705404b8.png 221w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dugcmkito/image/upload/v1671752999/small_Buildvs_Buy_Ebook_3f705404b8.png 500w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dugcmkito/image/upload/v1671752999/medium_Buildvs_Buy_Ebook_3f705404b8.png 750w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dugcmkito/image/upload/v1671752999/large_Buildvs_Buy_Ebook_3f705404b8.png 1000w," sizes="100vw"><figcaption>Still need help deciding whether you should build or buy your checkout experience? Download our eBook: <i>Build vs. Buy: Exploring Ecommerce Checkout Options</i> <a href="https://www.bolt.com/landing/ebook-build-vs-buy/">here</a>!</figcaption></figure><h2>What Is Compostable Commerce?</h2><p>According to <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en">Gartner</a>, composable commerce is “using packaged business capabilities to move toward future-proof digital commerce experiences.”&nbsp;</p><p>In other words, compostable commerce means businesses can create custom solutions for their needs. Composable commerce technology focuses on three components:</p><ul><li><strong>Modular architecture</strong>: By using vetted and tested building blocks, a company can create a fully customized experience and get their products to market faster.&nbsp;</li><li><strong>Business centricity</strong>: Putting technology in service of the business—not the other way around. Composable commerce asks what the business needs, then builds technology around that, allowing agility and flexibility.&nbsp;</li><li><strong>Open ecosystem</strong>: Allowing organizations to assemble a complete commerce experience integrated with existing solutions and not locked into a single, monolithic codebase.</li></ul><p>Why does composable commerce matter? Because it offers a middle ground to merchants who don’t want to have to either buy a flawed off-the-shelf system or risk building something from scratch that ends up causing headaches. With composable commerce solutions, merchants can build a custom product using existing components and then tailor it.&nbsp;</p><h3>Where Did Compostable Commerce Come From?</h3><p>This concept has been in the making for a long time—but the pandemic accelerated the shift. Suddenly, all commerce <i>had </i>to become digital, which meant an ever-increasing number of touchpoints with consumers. Businesses need more flexible solutions, which drove the development of the API economy and gave birth to composable commerce. Within the first 90 days of the pandemic, there were <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/five-fifty-the-quickening">10 years of digital commerce growth in the U.S.</a> And out of that growth came a complete rethinking of how the underlying technology of commerce can be built.</p><h2>Implementing Composable Commerce with Bolt Embedded One Click for Enterprise</h2><p>Bolt is, of course, helping to lead the charge in this space. Our Embeddable One Click is the ideal composable commerce solution for large retailers who have all-but-perfected their checkout experience.&nbsp;</p><p>For one thing, it’s the first integration layer over checkout that allows merchants to drop in UI elements—without disrupting their brand experience. Instead of rebuilding their checkout from scratch, merchants can upgrade specific components, using building blocks to improve the customer checkout experience.</p><blockquote><p><i>Bolt Embeddable Components are the composable commerce solution that helps merchants achieve their checkout goals.</i></p></blockquote><h3>Enhancing the Benefits of Composable Commerce</h3><p>According to Gartner, implementing composable commerce brings numerous technical and business benefits to Ecommerce brands—here’s how they map:&nbsp;</p><figure class="table"><table><tbody><tr><td><strong>Composable Commerce Benefit&nbsp;</strong></td><td><strong>How Bolt Meets These Needs</strong></td></tr><tr><td>Business benefit: Ability to compose your unique solutions&nbsp;</td><td>Our embeddable components can be implemented any way you like, giving merchants the power to use only what they need to build a tailored checkout solution that works with other commerce tools to enrich the customer experience.</td></tr><tr><td>Business benefit: Increase reaction speed, adaptation, and innovation&nbsp;</td><td>Bolt maintains ongoing testing capabilities for continuous component optimization. We’re always one step ahead in optimizing component features and creating new offerings.</td></tr><tr><td>Business benefit: Enables transformation and faster deployment of new business models&nbsp;</td><td>With an array of embeddable components, merchants can quickly add and deploy UI modules to build out new business models at scale with international-ready translations and localization without draining IT resources.</td></tr><tr><td>Technical benefit: Inherently pluggable/flexible for optimization or innovation&nbsp;</td><td>Bolt Embeddable Components take you out of the “one-size-fits-all” solution trap. Instead, merchants only implement the features that support their unique business initiatives.</td></tr><tr><td>Technical benefit: Modular development—release more often with less impact&nbsp;</td><td>Working with embeddable components gives additional flexibility so individual projects can move forward without being held back by a larger initiative</td></tr></tbody></table></figure><p><i>By 2023, organizations using composable commerce will deploy new features </i><a href="https://intive.com/insights/what-is-composable-commerce-and-how-is-it-reimagining-ecommerce#:~:text=Speed%20of%20Development,speed%20of%20new%20feature%20implementation.%E2%80%9D"><i>80% faster</i></a><i> than their competitors.</i></p><h2>Get Started with Composable Commerce</h2><p>Traditional commerce tools are insufficient for merchants looking to stay ahead of the curve. Instead, you need tools as fast, flexible, and scalable as your business. You need to innovate, deploy, and optimize incredible Ecommerce experiences rapidly. Bolt Embeddable Components does exactly that by empowering large retailers to improve their custom checkout experiences without straining internal IT resources.</p><p>Interested in seeing how Bolt Embeddable Components can help improve your checkout? Contact <a href="https://www.bolt.com/contact-sales/">Sales</a> today.</p>