• Explore. Learn. Thrive. Fastlane Media Network

  • ecommerceFastlane
  • PODFastlane
  • SEOfastlane
  • AdvisorFastlane
  • LifeFastlane

Scaling (With Ease) On Commercetools In A Global Marketplace

scaling-(with-ease)-on-commercetools-in-a-global-marketplace

014E1EFB-00C9-45B5-9B17-38E64EFBB128

The pandemic brought a new paradigm shift to how consumers access products and services. While online shopping had been ever increasing pre-pandemic, the many lockdowns dotting North America pushed even more spending into the online space. The numbers speak for themselves: In the US, ecommerce sales surged by 44% in 2020, compared to a year earlier, and in Canada retail ecommerce alone ballooned by 22%, and that space is expected to surge another 12% in 2021. 

Due to the tectonic plates of commerce rearranging themselves so drastically, consumers, now more than ever, expect a seamless, personalized and swift ecommerce experience from their favourite brands. And they want to access them anywhere and everywhere. 

Businesses looking for a future-ready framework on which to build their online assets are turning to headless commerce solutions. In fact, in a survey of hundreds of ecommerce executives, 62% of them agree that headless commerce can significantly improve engagement and conversions. 

The appeal of going headless is how businesses can deploy best-of-breed solutions for specific business functions, such as personalisation,pricing and subscriptions, and connect them with APIs, allowing them to integrate and work together, but remain independent as well.

One of the leading players in building those headless experiences is commercetools, which works with businesses seeking to save time and money by migrating from legacy ecommerce platforms to agile headless commerce projects.

Their clients include Lego, AT&T, Tiffany & Co, Ultra, and dozens of other B2B and B2C brands. 

The commercetools platform is grounded in an API-first, cloud-native approach that allows brands to quickly add commerce to channels and devices beyond traditional webshops, as well as boast a more agile workflow to enable fast-to-market launches. 

Also, commercetools has been lauded within their space: Research firm Forrester gave commercetools the highest possible scores in the platform architecture, product vision and road map, and delivery model criteria.  

According to the report, “The platform is ideal for those planning to take a ‘strangle and replace’ approach to migrating off a legacy platform. Its true value is to those who want to deliver the next generation of commerce experiences.”

How can businesses best craft the ideal experience for a 24/7 global marketplace that ensures their ecommerce experiences are not just ready to hurdle any challenges today but also for tomorrow? That’s where commercetool’s experience, and the muscle of their strong partnerships, come in.

Omnichannel surfing

An increasing amount of businesses are realizing the importance of sharp and fast innovation and reaching their consumers across all touchpoints. commercetools’ clients soon appreciate the value of agile strategies that bolster their core offerings on websites, apps, social media, voice-enabled technologies and even virtual reality/augmented reality.  

Omnichannel success also relies on the expertise crystallized in the bricks-and-mortar experience, which may have faded from view as the pandemic forced many retailers to close their physical stores. But by harnessing tangible expertise customers have long relied on when shopping in-person, savvy businesses can revitalize their digital properties with that layer of knowledge and guidance vital to scalable ecommerce experiences.

For some businesses, it can be a steeper learning curve than for others. As commercetools noted in their white paper on the topic, “Putting a successful omnichannel strategy into practice requires an adjustment to the organizational structure to allow for operating and expanding sales channels across departments and avoid information silos.”

Making the digital experience human

Elaborating on the point made above on bringing the human touch to the digital experience, it’s important for ecommerce initiatives to not just leverage their technical features but also the interactions that solidified their brand in-person to their many customers.

commercetools has linked arms with many varied partners to help them bring expertise to their clients. E2X, for example, is an agency focused on consulting and strategizing with businesses to build customer-centric, API-first commerce experiences.. 

They also understand the many angles of headless commerce. As one of their blog posts points out, “The average commerce website is a standard design, e.g. search capabilities sit at the top of the page. With headless commerce, customisation is more flexible and user-friendly…The API-based structure allows quick and seamless interaction between the frontend and backend, which improves factors like speed-to-market and SEO.”

A vision for partnerships that drive growth

Globalization is fast becoming a driver of growth and scale for brands looking to expand into new markets. And it’s not something that happens in a fingersnap; establishing close relationships with reliable partners is the first step, and then platforms like commercetools succeed by delivering on their promises.

Bold has partnered with commercetools to help enterprise clients solve complex challenges. Headless architecture gives partners such as Bold the opportunity to work with commercetools in a close way. Bold Checkout and Bold Subscriptions enable a pre-built, optimized checkout and foundational subscriptions capabilities  to reduce time to market. And because headless architecture is a decoupled approach, all of this meaningful enablement happens without causing front or backend disruption, removing the risk, cost, and complexity of the project at hand..

The Bold-commercetools partnership is an inspiring example of why businesses should find the right alliance.. Leaning on the most fitting partner will strengthen a business’s position in having the best in breed  commerce platform that produces a frictionless shopping experience, no matter the touchpoint. 

If you're facing an uphill battle iterating and evolving  on your legacy ecommerce platform, work with partners on the ground who may be seeing the challenges from different angles. The more perspectives and skill sets you can bring into your enterprise the better. 

Business leaders will always face a volley of complex problems they have to tackle right away, but those that are well-armed with knowledge, foresight, best-in-class technology and supportive partners will be equipped to scale and grow with confidence.

Explore headless

This originally appeared on Bold Commerce and is made available here to educate and cast a wider net of discovery.
Prev
Tips For Launching A Successful Social Commerce Initiative
tips-for-launching-a-successful-social-commerce-initiative

Tips For Launching A Successful Social Commerce Initiative

Next
Influencer Marketing Technology: What Tools Are There & How Do You Use Them?
influencer-marketing-technology:-what-tools-are-there-&-how-do-you-use-them?

Influencer Marketing Technology: What Tools Are There & How Do You Use Them?

You May Also Like