A few benefits of decoupling an e-commerce platform from the frontend user experience

This is just a rough list of benefits we’ve seen as we’ve helped a number of big-brand retail companies separate the backend e-commerce platform from the code which powers the user experience. It’s been amazing to see the results.

Allows for rapid iteration on both systems separately

• Any solid e-commecre experience is only solid because it is continually evolved
• Use analytics and A/B testing to put real data behind experience design decisions
• The tech for each evolves at a different pace, the system as a whole needs to embrace this to stay current

Allows for ease of deployment on both systems separately

• Removing the fear of deploying makes is much easier to get new features into production—feature flags can be a big help here
• Ease of deployment only comes with automation, frequency and ease of rollback
• A regular release schedule means you can launch smaller chunks frequently instead of sweeping changes rarely (less risk, more confidence).

Allows for collaboration between Marketing/Communications and IT/Infrastructure

• These teams are traditionally oppositional
• However, this is a space where success requires their collaboration

Allows the eComm platform to drive more than just a website

• If structured properly, a single backend system is capable of serving structured data to a myriad of different touchpoints (web, native, in-store-kiosk, etc.)
• Creating consistency across these touchpoints increases confidence in the brand and efficiency of development
• Also allows for the integration of a set of common UX/UI patterns throughout the suite of customer interactions

I’m sure there are many more!

Have you worked on a project like this? What am I missing?

Ben Callahan is the President of Sparkbox and founder of the Build Right workshop series.