6 Benefits of Going Global with Composable Commerce
Joanna Staniec
Are you ready to expand your e-commerce business internationally but worried about the technical complexities of supporting multiple languages and cultures? In this blog post, we'll explain the benefits of building a global e-commerce business with a composable commerce architecture that maintains functionality and boosts international sales.
Having a cross-border strategy isn't enough. To succeed, you need a tailored e-commerce solution that can handle all the challenges associated with international expansion.
If you're concerned that switching to a composable e-commerce platform might compromise functionality and impact customer experience, we're here to debunk that myth. Read on to discover how to make your global expansion successful with a composable commerce platform.
E-Commerce Businesses Reaching International Customers
Countries' borders are no longer barriers for e-commerce businesses. According to Statista the global B2C cross-border e-commerce market is projected to reach an impressive $7.9 trillion by 2030. For context, this market was valued at around $785 billion in 2021.
Source: Cross-border B2C e-commerce market value worldwide, Statista
Of course, the B2C sector is only a part of the global e-commerce landscape. Other markets, like B2B or C2C, are growing internationally faster than ever. PayPal's 2022 Borderless E-Commerce Report revealed that in nearly all surveyed countries, over 40% of online shoppers are now making cross-border purchases.
Source: B2C e-commerce sales CARG forecast from 2024 to 2029, Statista
This growing trend highlights the expanding opportunities for e-commerce companies. To capture them, you need a tailored e-commerce solution that provides high scalability and overcomes many challenges associated with global expansion.
Challenges of Expanding E-Commerce Business Globally
Developing a strategy for cross-border expansion is demanding. However, this strategy's success depends mainly on your e-commerce platform's capabilities. Without robust technological support, even the most well-crafted plans can fail.
Your platform must be reliable, flexible, and scalable to support your global ambitions and deliver a seamless omnichannel experience to new customers worldwide. What are the main challenges your e-commerce ecosystem needs to overcome?
1. Language Barrier
Supporting multiple languages is crucial to serving a diverse customer base. According to CSA research, 75% of consumers prefer to buy products in their native language, And 40% do not buy from online stores in foreign languages. However, to build trust with international online shoppers, it's not enough to implement automatic translation alone.
Multilingual e-commerce platforms must also accommodate various character sets, date formats, and numerical systems. It's also important to be aware of linguistic subtleties. For instance, the word "pants" translates into "trousers" in the US and "underwear" in the UK.
2. Multi-Currency Support
Your platform must handle multiple currencies and enable real-time currency conversion. It's also necessary to account for regional variations in pricing, taxes, and shipping expenses to make accurate calculations.
Furthermore, you must ensure the platform correctly formats prices according to local conventions, which requires locale-specific formatting libraries. Displaying prices in local currencies from product listings to the final checkout page reduces confusion and improves the shopping experience.
Composable Commerce in Action
An excellent example of composable commerce in action is Mirumee's global checkout service. To achieve safety and speed of this section we integrate a range of checkout features including multiple languages and currencies support, dynamic taxation, fee optimization, payment processors, credit card storage, and fraud protection.
As a result, businesses can overcome language barriers and offer a consistent and localized shopping experience. It naturally leads to increasing customer satisfaction and conversion rates.
3. Cultural Differences
According to McKinsey 60% of cross-border e-commerce orders are intercontinental. Cultural differences can significantly impact purchase behavior.
For instance, credit cards and digital wallets like PayPal are commonly used for online purchases in the US. However, customers from the Southeast Asia region prefer payments via apps like GrabPay or Boost Wallet.
Understanding cultural context and providing a localized user experience is critical for international success. Your global e-commerce platform must support multiple payment options, languages, and other regional preferences, such as design or product recommendations based on regional trends.
4. Regulatory Compliance
Countries have different regulations concerning data privacy, consumer protection, and e-commerce transactions. Ensuring compliance with these regulations is a complex task that requires a robust technological framework.
For instance, the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) imposes strict rules on collecting, storing, and using personal data. Your online store must comply with these regulations to gain customers' trust as well as avoid hefty fines.
5. Complex Integrations
Effective integrations are critical to ensure that all components of your global e-commerce ecosystem work seamlessly together. These challenges include integrating:
- diverse payment gateways,
- logistics and fulfillment services,
- customer support systems,
- data management,
- content management systems,
- content delivery networks,
- other third-party services.
To achieve this, you must build flexible APIs and maintain compatibility with various tools specific to each market.
6. Performance Optimization
Your e-commerce platform must ensure fast load times and a seamless user experience across different regions. Achieving it on a global scale involves leveraging multiple performance optimization techniques. Key strategies include among others:
- using Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) to distribute static content globally,
- optimizing database queries to ensure efficiency,
- implementing robust caching strategies at various levels.
Mirumee Case Study: Global E-commerce Expansion with Composable Commerce
Butterfly Network teamed up with Mirumee to build a dynamic multilingual e-commerce platform. The business goal was to facilitate the global reach of their handheld ultrasound devices.
Our team helped Butterfly develop the platform, which now operates in 18 countries and supports four languages, offering features like multiple currencies, dynamic tax settings, and diverse subscription models.
This project showcases how composable commerce can effectively tackle the complexities and challenges of international expansion.
How Composable Commerce Benefits Help Overcome Global Challenges?
Composable commerce offers a more flexible, scalable, and efficient solution than traditional monolithic platforms. Its modular architecture, API-first approach, and inherent scalability make it a perfect solution for international expansion.
A composable approach allows you to tailor your online store to different markets without sacrificing performance or user experience. Here are the key benefits of going global with composable commerce.
1. Modularity and Flexibility
Modular architecture allows you to select and integrate best-of-breed components customized to target new markets. It makes adding, replacing, or updating individual components easier without affecting the entire system. As a result, you can create a highly customizable platform that easily adapts to the requirements of different regions.
The composable architecture may seem more complex than the monolithic approach. However, starting with a single component can ease the transition. Incremental adoption allows your team to adapt gradually, building the new e-commerce platform step by step. This approach ensures a smoother transition and maintains a high customer experience.
Furthermore, composable solutions reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) by requiring smaller commitments in time and money. Additionally, you can switch to a new partner anytime for better-aligned services and budget. So, there is no risk of vendor lock-in with modular e-commerce technology.
Key Composable Commerce Benefits
- Simplify transition to new e-commerce platform
- High level of customer experience during the transition period
- Ability to switch to the vendor that better meets your needs
- Easy updates to individual components
- Reduced risks associated with large-scale system overhauls
2. Enhanced Customer Experience
One of the significant benefits of composable commerce is its ability to deliver personalized experiences. Each market has unique preferences, and a composable system lets you tailor every aspect of the customer journey to meet these local demands.
For instance, you can integrate region-specific recommendation engines and search functionalities, such as Algolia for Europe or Dynamic Yield for Asia. Therefore, your potential customers receive relevant product suggestions and search results that resonate with their cultural and purchasing habits.
Another example is that you can customize the global checkout to support local payment methods, currencies, and compliance requirements. You will provide customers with a seamless and familiar transaction experience in each market.
Key Composable Commerce Benefits
- Experiences tailored to regional preferences, cultural differences, and different languages
- High level of service and reliability across different markets
- Remain competitive with local businesses
- Stronger connections with online shoppers abroad
- Improved customer loyalty, satisfaction, and retention
3. Reduced Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
While the initial investment in a tailored composable solution may be high, the long-term benefits outweigh the costs. By reducing the need for extensive custom development and ongoing maintenance, composable commerce offers a cost-effective solution for global expansion. Simply put, you can save money and time on endless custom development work.
Decoupling various components allows you to allocate resources precisely where needed. For instance, instead of scaling an entire monolithic system to meet increased demand in one region, you can scale only the necessary components, such as the inventory system. As a result, you can reduce unnecessary spending on infrastructure and maintenance and ensure more stable revenue growth.
Additionally, the ability to integrate best-of-breed solutions means you can choose cost-effective tools that meet specific regional requirements. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel and develop custom features over and over again.
Key Composable Commerce Benefits
- Lower long-term infrastructure and maintenance expenses
- Targeted scaling to meet regional demand increases
- High availability of cost-effective and region-specific tools
- Resources directed to necessary components and technologies
- Precise resource management in international markets thanks to decoupled components
4. API-First Approach
APIs enable rapid deployment and customization to meet specific regional needs without extensive redevelopment. Another critical benefit is simplified integration with various external systems. It enhances the ability to adopt or replace new technologies without disrupting the core architecture.
Moreover, APIs support modular development. As a result, various functionalities can be easily added, updated, or removed to cater to different markets. This means faster time to market compared to a monolithic approach.
This approach also promotes better collaboration between teams, encourages the use of microservices, and improves the overall developer experience by providing a consistent and predictable interface.
Key Composable Commerce Benefits
- Fast time to market
- Customer experiences tailored to regional preferences
- Easy adaptation to local markets and specific business needs
- Smooth integrations with existing systems
- Quick adjustments to changing market demands
5. Independent Scaling
In a composable system, each component can scale independently. So you can efficiently allocate resources based on regional demand. For example, suppose your payment gateway needs to handle increased traffic in Europe while your inventory system scales in Asia. In that case, you can adjust each component accordingly without overhauling the entire ecosystem.
You can also improve performance for a specific region. By deploying services closer to your customers using cloud providers' global infrastructure (e.g., AWS, Google Cloud), you can improve load times and performance. This granular control optimizes performance, reduces costs, and enhances user experience across different markets.
Key Composable Commerce Benefits
- Possibility to scale only necessary components to match regional demand
- Lower infrastructure and maintenance costs by avoiding unnecessary scaling of the entire system
- Fast adaptation to market changes and regional requirements
- Improved performance by focusing on high-demand areas
- Enhance team expertise and reduce operational costs
6. Operational Efficiency
Each component of your system operates independently in a modular architecture. This independence allows for streamlined updates and maintenance. As a result, a composable platform reduces the complexity and downtime associated with system-wide issues. If your European market requires a specific update for a specific local payment option, you can implement it without affecting your operations in other regions.
An additional composable commerce benefit is the possibility of allocating resources more effectively. You can target specific regions or functionalities without affecting the entire e-commerce store. For example, during a high-demand season in North America, you can scale up your inventory management component there without altering your global setup.
Moreover, you can assign dedicated specialists to develop and maintain specific components, enhancing expertise and efficiency through your team. For example, one team can focus solely on improving the checkout experience. This results in faster response times and reduced operational costs. A more agile business model makes your digital commerce capable of quickly adapting to market changes.
Key Composable Commerce Benefits
- Lower operational costs thanks to incremental improvements
- Reduce complexity and downtime which specialized teams
- Localized updates without global impact
- Fast adaptation to market changes and improved performance
- Efficient resource use thanks to high e-commerce scalability and flexibility
Smooth Transition to Global E-Commerce with Composable Commerce
One of the objections to adopting a new e-commerce platform is the fear of compromising functionality, which could negatively impact customer experience and sales. However, composable commerce addresses this concern effectively.
Composable commerce platforms are built with flexibility and integration in mind, ensuring that all components work seamlessly together. Thus, you can introduce new features and enhancements without disrupting the existing functionality of your e-commerce site.
Leveraging the modular nature of composable commerce enables businesses to continuously improve and adapt their e-commerce solutions to meet customer needs and market demands. This approach provides an outstanding customer experience without causing any disruptions.
Moreover, incremental adoption allows you to build the new multilingual e-commerce platform step by step, so you will be able to maintain a high customer experience even during the transition period.
