DEV Community: Martin

What is Composable Commerce, and Why Will it Change Your Business?

Martin — Fri, 09 Aug 2024 07:43:21 +0000

Gartner, the premier market analyst agency, coined the term "composable commerce" and forecasted that adopting a modular building approach for technology systems is not a passing trend. This approach has evolved into a more refined version of composable systems with the advent of a cloud-native, component-based ecosystem. Being able to build anything faster, be more agile, and better adapt to change offers a significant advantage for companies.

In this article, we will understand the core concepts of composable commerce and explore why companies are taking interest in it.

What is Composable Commerce?

Composable commerce is a modular approach to building solutions with flexibility and freedom, enabling organizations to replace out-of-the-box solutions with tailored components. This approach allows them to create exceptional shopping experiences through modular components. Here are the key characteristics of composable commerce:

Cloud-Native: Software that is cloud-native can fully leverage cloud architecture, reducing maintenance costs while increasing scalability and faster time-to-market. Enterprises can scale without missing major events, ensuring they are always ready.
Component-Based: A composable system is built from individual components, such as search, cart, or checkout, which can be added or swapped based on need. By connecting these components via a web-API-first approach, businesses can mix third-party, best-of-breed resources with cost-effective in-house applications.
Tech-Agnostic: Composable commerce allows businesses to pick and choose the latest tools and technologies, freeing them from any proprietary technology and vendor lock-in.

By combining cloud-native, component-based, and tech-agnostic software, composable commerce enables brands to deploy unique customer experiences across any touchpoint and adapt much faster to unforeseen changes in business requirements without being hindered by legacy, monolithic systems.

Composable Commerce is the New Cool — But Why?

Legacy IT platforms are often monolithic and difficult to customize or update. This rigidity stands in stark contrast to today's rapidly evolving world, which demands companies to be as innovative and efficient as possible. The gradual trend towards composable commerce, especially with companies like Walmart now adopting dynamic ecosystem models, provides an affordable way for businesses to phase out their monolithic systems while maintaining control.

A case in point is the 2020 baby formula crisis. How did Danone, with its composable commerce vision, respond to it? By leveraging composable commerce, Danone was able to pivot rapidly into Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) sales, delivering essential nutrition products directly to parents' homes during the COVID-19 period.

The Benefits of Composable Commerce

There are three main benefits of composable commerce:

Infinite Scalability: Enterprises can scale their infrastructure automatically based on real data, ensuring they are always prepared for peak volumes, such as Black Friday or other high-demand events.
Limitless Flexibility and Agility: Composable commerce allows businesses to modify individual components without overhauling the entire platform. This flexibility enables faster innovation and quicker responses to evolving customer requirements.
Cost Optimization: Composable commerce allows businesses to maximize their investments with plug-and-play components that integrate seamlessly, eliminating the need for expensive upgrades and reducing overall maintenance costs.

Composable Commerce – The Easiest Way to Simplify & Cut Costs

While composable commerce may sound complex, the reality is quite the opposite. It can actually reduce costs for retailers. Modular architecture and interchangeable components ensure that businesses can easily manage and maintain their technology stacks.

Higher Speed to Market: New solutions can be quickly adopted without incurring integration costs.
Scalability: Cloud-native SaaS solutions offer endless scalability without the need for companies to host their own servers.
Developer Efficiency: Modern technology enables developers to work faster, which accelerates innovation.

Composable Commerce and Omnichannel for Customers

Personalization is key to upselling and cross-selling, raising the bar for the omnichannel customer experience. With the help of composable commerce, brands can provide fast, mobile-first experiences that can scale infinitely.

For instance, beauty retailer Trinny London enabled a "try-before-you-buy" feature with relevant sample products featured during purchase.

Beginning Your Composable Commerce Journey

Starting with composable commerce doesn’t mean you have to replace your entire e-commerce platform all at once. Begin by solving your most painful problems, such as fixing a weak checkout flow. This approach allows for quick troubleshooting and faster realization of business value through phased deployment.

For example, Trendhim successfully implemented composable commerce by gradually moving its systems piece by piece, starting with less risk-intensive parts of the business, such as fulfillment. This phased approach not only creates a smoother transition but also allows for thorough preparation ahead of the actual migration day, ensuring control is maintained throughout the process.

Ready to Go Beyond the Monolith and Take Control of Your E-commerce?

Contact Ignitiv’s experts for Composable Commerce implementation.

How to Integrate Distributed Order Management System with Shopify Plus?

Martin — Wed, 31 Jul 2024 12:19:03 +0000

Retail brands scaling their brick-and-mortar operations with eCommerce on Shopify must invest in a robust Omnichannel Order Management System (OMS) for success. When you combine all of that with Shopify, this system can lead to vastly improved customer experiences across the board.

Key Features and Benefits of OMS Integration

Store Mode: On the product listing page, the "Store Mode" feature redirects the customer directly to stores with available stock locally. It also shows a full pick-up selection for every item, making purchasing even easier.

Express Shipping: The OMS can ensure that retailers fulfill orders with express shipping when there is inventory available at a nearby fulfillment location, whether in-store or within an upstream warehouse.

Automated Product Listings: The OMS prevents retailers from having to manually list and de-list pre-order products on the site in real-time as purchase orders arrive for future inventory.

Challenges in OMS Integration

Integrating an Omnichannel Order Management System has been a tedious process, requiring difficult integrations between legacy systems within the retail stack. In retail, the implementation of these systems may need consultation with an OMS integration service provider.

Steps to Integrate a Distributed OMS with Shopify Plus

Initial Setup

Products: The OMS fetches all product information from Shopify and maintains a master catalog in its system. This step helps the OMS process and manage orders placed by customers accurately.
Inventory: When integrated with the retailer's ERP system, the OMS gets an inventory count from ERP every morning. Merchandisers may also import individual product counts directly into the OMS.
Orders: The OMS pulls all open orders from Shopify, allowing retailers to control how much order history is downloaded. Retailers can choose to download outstanding orders from the last month to six months.

Day-to-Day Setup

Product Data: Including main pieces of information such as Shopify ID, SKU, and UPC numbers, product imagery, and descriptions improves order accuracy and user-friendliness. The OMS should request new products every 15 minutes.
Order Data: Every new order coming into Shopify is downloaded to the OMS. New orders should be fetched at least every 15 minutes. The OMS communicates with Shopify via API connection every 30 minutes to bring all updated placed orders, reflecting any changes like item additions or removals by users. The OMS updates the status of fulfilled orders in Shopify through batch processing every 30 minutes.
Inventory Data: The OMS becomes the single source of truth for real-time inventory information. Shopify should seek its inventory directly from the OMS, which uses physical quantity on hand and reduces it by safety stock, threshold inventory level, and brokering queue orders. This ensures eCommerce promises are not overrated.

Inventory Syncing Scenarios

Online Store Orders: For new orders, inventory is deducted based on the default fulfillment location for eCommerce. The OMS routes them to optimal fulfillment locations and updates inventory levels accordingly.
Shopify POS In-Store Sales: Inventory updates are automatically made to Shopify POS. The OMS should subscribe to the Shopify webhook in real-time to know once a sale is made and automatically deduct inventory.
Returns at Warehouse: The OMS reads the inventory feed for all products at every location each morning from ERP to process returns.
Inventory Receiving: This app allows store associates to log all receiving from inter-store shipments, returns, or purchase order shipments, automatically updating inventory in the OMS.
Damaged/Found Inventory: Damaged or found inventory should be noted in the OMS Inventory Counting App, ensuring correct inventory levels and updating Shopify via batch.

Best Practices for Synchronizing Data

Batch Processes: Shopify webhooks are used to keep records of product, inventory, or order information in sync. However, webhook delivery is not guaranteed, so regular data syncing with Shopify via reconciliation jobs is necessary. Batch downloading and updating of data through Shopify APIs is desirable to handle more data and prevent missing or delayed updates.

These approaches ensure Shopify merchants can effectively distribute responsibilities and apply their omnichannel strategies. OMS vendors may require custom development, usually taking a minimum of three months to build necessary apps and complete end-to-end testing. However, businesses can leverage Shopify development services or an advanced OMS for Shopify, enabling retailers to go live with their omnichannel Shopify strategies in a few days.

What's New in Shopify: Highlights from the Summer '24 Edition

Martin — Fri, 26 Jul 2024 07:16:03 +0000

At Ignitiv, we specialize in providing OMS integration for complex businesses running on Shopify Plus. With the latest updates from Shopify's Summer '24 Edition, there are numerous exciting enhancements designed to create a faster, more resilient, and more integrated platform. Here’s a look at some of the key highlights:

Expand into New Markets

Shopify has transformed its former cross-border selling solution, Markets, into a comprehensive hub for growth and expansion. The reimagined Markets now serves as a central command center, allowing merchants to customize buyer experiences for:

Selling internationally
Expanding into B2B
Selling in person with Shopify POS

Markets consolidates all these functions into one location in your admin, eliminating the need to navigate multiple stores or different workflows. This streamlined process allows you to create a new market, customize it, and launch it efficiently.

AI Built for Commerce

Time efficiency is critical for any business. Shopify has embedded AI across its platform to save valuable time and keep businesses at the forefront of technology.

Media Editor

With the rollout of AI image generation in the Media Editor tool, merchants have saved over 1 million AI-generated images to their storefronts. Now, Shopify is:

Extending AI image editing to all areas in the admin where images are used, such as the Online Store Editor and Email Editor.
Expanding AI capabilities to the Shopify mobile app for professional image edits on the go.

AI-Powered Product Creation

Adding new products has become simpler with AI. Magic, Shopify’s AI tool, instantly suggests personalized and intelligent recommendations for all product categories. It assigns the right attributes—like color, size, and style—minimizing listing errors and ensuring products are easily found online.

Suggested Replies

For stores using Shopify Inbox, AI quickly suggests responses to incoming customer chats based on store-specific information. This feature allows for real-time customer interaction, improving efficiency and engagement.

Sidekick

Sidekick, Shopify’s AI-enabled commerce assistant, offers context and guidance to help merchants make informed decisions and utilize Shopify’s features effectively. Sidekick understands specific products, orders, and customers, aiding in generating customer segments and providing insights in analytics. Merchants interested in early access can sign up.

Simplify Selling in Person

Shopify has introduced new features to make in-person selling as seamless as online selling. These include:

One-tap digital receipts for Shop Pay users at checkout, enabling them to receive digital receipts and opt into marketing.
Automatic detection of product return eligibility, providing staff with context on return reasons.

These updates streamline transactions and enhance customer satisfaction.

Unified Analytics, Rebuilt from the Ground Up

Timely decision-making depends on accurate data. Shopify has rebuilt its analytics to provide smarter, faster, and more intuitive data exploration. This allows merchants to see, explore, and curate their data in real time. For example, Shelby Adams from Cleverhood highlighted how the new analytics help correlate locations and monthly sales patterns, aiding in strategic sales planning.

OMS for Shopify by Ignitiv

As Shopify continues to evolve, so does the need for robust order management solutions. Ignitiv specializes in providing OMS integration for Shopify Plus, helping complex businesses manage orders efficiently and seamlessly. With our expertise, businesses can leverage the latest Shopify updates to optimize their operations and scale effectively.

If you're looking for an advanced OMS for Shopify, Ignitiv can help you integrate and make the most of these new features. Contact us today to learn more about our services and how we can support your business growth.

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Cover Image: source

HYVÄ Themes Releases: 1.3.6 & 1.3.7 – What’s New

Martin — Fri, 26 Jul 2024 06:35:13 +0000

Well, we have good news for all Magento store owners. Yay, Hyvä Themes has released versions 1.3.6 and 1.3.7!

Highlights of the Releases

These updates bring significant performance improvements, new features, and compatibility enhancements for Magento stores.

Key Features of HYVÄ Themes 1.3.6 & 1.3.7

Alpine.js Deferral

Use Alpine.js components only when needed. This deferred loading speeds up the initial page load, providing a fast experience from the first click.
Smarter JavaScript Usage

This update introduces a "conditional dependency" method to reduce unnecessary JavaScript, simplify loading, and make your Hyvä Theme store leaner and faster.
Instant Page Transitions (Experimental)

Leveraging the new Pre-rendering Speculation Rules API (available in Chrome & Edge), this feature offers predictive loading for smoother user experiences. This can be activated via Hyvä system settings.
Reduced AJAX Calls

By not setting customer data through AJAX for new visitors, the initial page response time is faster, conserving server resources and improving speed for everyone.
Smaller Stylesheets

TailwindCSS v3.4.1 brings improvements and bug fixes, resulting in slimmer stylesheet sizes and quicker load times.

Additional Enhancements and Fixes

General Bug Fixes and Improvements

These updates ensure a more stable and reliable experience.
Magento 2.4.7 Compatibility (1.3.7 only)

Full support for the latest Magento version ensures seamless integration and smooth transitions between different major versions.
Increased Security

A potential security vulnerability related to customer login via AJAX endpoint was proactively fixed, enhancing store security.

Official Documentation

Upgrade Now to See the Difference

We encourage you to upgrade your existing theme to experience the performance gains and new functionalities introduced in Hyvä Themes 1.3.6 & 1.3.7. Hyvä Themes 1.3.X helps you build high-performing and secure Magento stores that rank higher in search results, convert better, and provide a delightful experience for your customers.

Start now and feel the Hyvä difference! Let Ignitiv, your trusted Magento development partner, handle the complex Hyvä integration and boost your store's speed and conversions with our specialized Magento Development Services.

What is Managed Magento Hosting And Why Do You Need It?

Martin — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 06:54:21 +0000

Magento Hosting

A successful Magento store is one that outperforms in speed, agility, and robustness, handling spikes in traffic without compromising security. However, since Magento does not provide managed hosting, you will need a robust infrastructure to meet specific web hosting requirements.

An appropriate Magento hosting environment needs to have a server equipped with specific and well-configured technologies. These needs are supported by various forms of hosting, including:

Shared Hosting
Dedicated Hosting
Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting
Cloud Hosting

When considering the ideal hosting plan for Magento, you have to choose between a Managed or Do-It-Yourself (DIY) solution. As your Magento store grows, a DIY solution can drain more time, budget, and resources, requiring 24/7 support.

Paying for a managed hosting provider will keep your web application code (OS, language runtimes) updated, provide daily backups, and secure the server. This article explores managed hosting services and why you should choose a managed Magento hosting provider.

What Is Managed Magento Hosting?

A managed hosting provider supplies and manages a server, enabling you to focus on the day-to-day tasks of running your business. Managed hosting for Magento involves several key components:

Knowledge of the application
Server configurations (performance, security, backups)
Cloud knowledge and expertise

Technical experts work behind the scenes to keep your site live as you add products, publish new features, and grow traffic. Managed Magento hosting also includes migration, scalability, performance, and security.

Benefits of Managed Magento services

Custom shopping cart migration
Hourly full backups
Server-side security patches
Current bug fixes
Cache management
Continuous monitoring
Database management
In-application customer support
Development environment
Compliance and security certifications
Firewall and data encryption

Working regularly on these tasks removes technical and maintenance issues, allowing your Magento store to scale with ease.

Advantages of Fully Managed Hosting for Magento

Application-Level Support by Experts

Managed hosting provides professional assistance to manage the Magento infrastructure, with experienced developers customizing the online store and handling server configurations, firewalls, SSL certificates, etc.

Operational Support

Managed hosting ensures full operational functionality, with server administrators fixing issues quickly. It includes utilities like logging management, Varnish Cache, web application firewall, and monitoring.

Enhanced Security

Ecommerce stores are sensitive targets for cybercrimes. Managed hosting prioritizes security with regular updates, vulnerability scans, and server-side patches, protecting against threats like malware, phishing, and SQL injection.

Optimization and Performance

Managed service providers handle server and software optimization workloads, ensuring fast page load times and improved bounce rates, conversions, and customer loyalty.

Scalability

Managed hosting solutions allow for global expansion, maintaining functionality during traffic surges with auto-scaling and demand forecasting.

Reduce Time and Save Costs

Managed hosting is more economical than hosting a Magento website individually, avoiding the need for full-time technical support and costly hourly services.

Global Cloud Data Center Infrastructure

Managed hosting provides a robust infrastructure for introducing new features and plugins without compromising performance, crucial during high-impact e-commerce events.

Newest Hosting Technologies

Magento customers on AWS Cloud benefit from technologies like Amazon Relational Database Service (AWS RDS) and AWS Web Application Firewall.

Comparison Table: Managed Hosting vs. Unmanaged Hosting

Categories	Managed Hosting	Unmanaged Hosting
Access and Control	Managed by Magento professionals	Full root access and control
Installations and Setup	Conducted by specialists	Self-installation and configuration
Migration	Controlled and simple	Requires Magento expertise
Security	Full-service security by the hosting provider	Self-managed security
Performance and Uptime	Optimized by managed services	Dependent on self-optimization
Control Panel	Provided and installed by hosting services	Not included
Updates, Backups, and Restores	Automated by system admins	Self-handled
Technical Support	24/7 support from hosting services	Requires technical expertise or costly support
Efficiency and Productivity	Saves time, efficient	Requires significant time and effort
Scaling	Scalable global infrastructure provided	Requires self-managed infrastructure
Monitoring and Maintenance	Continuous and managed by hosting services	Self-managed
Costs	Recurring fees, but cost-effective long-term	No recurring fees but higher long-term costs

Conclusion

E-commerce businesses must constantly compete with evolving business models and the latest technologies. The backend workloads of Magento hosting, which impact performance and security, can be intense. An ideal solution is to outsource these tasks to a fully Magento managed service provider, which acts as a backbone to grow your e-commerce.

Need Magento experts to manage your store? Choose Ignitiv for hassle-free Magento Managed Services!