Don’t Buy Into Composable Commerce Unless You Know What You’re Doing

Composable commerce means that instead of buying one big e-commerce platform, you build your own — piece by piece. You choose the best checkout, the best CMS, the best search, and connect them through APIs. In theory, you get full flexibility and never have to compromise.

At least that’s the promise. But in practice, it’s a lot harder than it sounds.

We’ve seen companies invest heavily in composable setups without having the people, structure, or processes to keep it together. Six months later, the stack is full of overlapping integrations and quick fixes — and no one can say who’s actually responsible for what.

Flexibility comes with responsibility

The more services you combine, the more coordination you need. Updates, integrations, data flow, performance — it all requires someone who keeps the bigger picture in check. Without that, you lose the very flexibility you were promised.

And even if you buy your composable solution from a full-service agency, you can’t fully outsource the responsibility. You still need someone on your side who understands the technology. Someone who can review their work, ask the right questions, and make sure the solution actually holds up in practice.

It’s not a tech problem — it’s an organization problem

Composable works best when there’s already a strong tech team, clear product ownership, and a culture of continuous delivery. If you don’t have that, it doesn’t matter how good your tools are. You’ll still end up waiting on external partners for every small change — and that’s not agility, that’s dependency.

Build the team before the stack

Before investing in composable you should ask yourself:

• Do we have people who understand the full flow — not just their part?
  
  

• Do we own our architecture, or are we renting it?
  
  

• Do we have time and budget for maintenance, not just launch day?
  
  

• Do we have someone who can technically assess what our suppliers deliver?

If the answer is “not yet”, focus there first. Then composable can actually deliver on its promise.

Our advice

Composable isn’t bad, but it’s not for everyone. If you’re a smaller organization without deep technical capacity, you’re often better off with a simpler, more cohesive platform that you fully control.

The goal isn’t to have the most modern setup. It’s to have one that works — both today, and a year from now.

We’ve helped companies through both great and not-so-great composable projects. If you want to hear what actually works — and what doesn’t — give us a call.

hej@nvrmind.se
+46 (0) 70-654 99 59

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