Shopify recently announced the launch of Commerce Components by Shopify. The announcement made a splash in the eCommerce industry, with many challenging this new direction for the company. The Stable, a key Shopify partner who has built hundreds of Shopify websites over the last decade, weighs in on the launch of this new offering and how it might transform the way enterprise websites are built.

Commerce Components is Shopify’s “new” tech stack for enterprise brands. While Shopify hasn’t technically released any new features, they have evolved their software’s architecture to become modular and composable.

Instead of having all components tightly coupled and dependent on one another (like you would with Shopify Core and Plus), a modular approach makes it possible to break down a large architecture into manageable and independent components connected by APIs (see Shopify’s list of components).

The difference might seem small, but it’s actually quite significant for the industry and for Shopify as an organization. Not only is Shopify embracing a new way of building websites, it’s also strengthening its offering to compete against legacy platforms such as Salesforce and Magento, historically favored by enterprise retailers.

So, what exactly is new with Commerce Components?

Unlimited APIs
Because of its modular nature, Commerce Components offers unlimited API connections which means there will be no limits in the number of components and integrations you can connect to a Commerce Components tech stack.

Higher Transactional Volumes
Commerce Components will be able to handle larger amounts of transactions, increasing the platform’s capabilities to 40k checkouts per minute per store.

More Variants
Today you can only have up to 100 product variants on Shopify, which can be overcome but is a pain point for some brands. With Commerce Components, the variant limit will be increased, but Shopify stayed vague on how many more variants will be available.

Professional Services
Shopify Professional Services will work collaboratively with agencies like The Stable to consult, design, and deliver innovative commerce experiences for enterprise retailers. This might involve architecture/solution design reviews, dedicated solutions engineering support, delivery management and even unlocking the platform for new feature development (e.g., Custom APIs).

BYO Payment Processing
With Commerce Components, you can still take advantage of Shopify’s fantastic checkout with the flexibility of choosing your payment processor.

Over the last decade, there has been a great effort from enterprise brands to digitize their business and create more harmony between offline and online shopping. However, for a long time, the commerce software market hasn’t been ready to handle such complexity out-of-the-box so retailers had to build their own tech stack from scratch.

It quickly became apparent that building custom eCommerce solutions from scratch was not only incredibly expensive and time consuming, but they also weren’t evolutive.

Today, commerce is all about speed and flexibility. Brands need to move at the speed of consumers, constantly learning and adapting the way they advertise, sell, retain customers and create memorable experiences. This type of agility just isn’t compatible with custom-built tech stacks. At some point you have to compromise by standardizing part of your tech stack in favor of added speed and flexibility.

Enter Commerce Components by Shopify.

If you don’t want to buy an all-in-one solution but also can’t afford to continue sinking money in a non-evolutive tech stack, then Commerce Components is the perfect hybrid solution. It allows you to buy the foundational components needed to operate an online business and build in added customizations. Because each component is independent, you can easily add, swap, or delete components without the whole system collapsing in on itself.

This new approach to building websites represents a tremendous opportunity for enterprise brands to become innovators and free up time to focus on customer experience vs building software.

Toy company Mattel is leading the charge after announcing that it will be moving its entire portfolio of brands — which include Barbie, Hot Wheels and Fisher-Price — to Shopify using Commerce Components.

Shopify was loud and clear with this announcement; Commerce Components is catering to an enterprise audience, targeting retail brands that generate more than $500M in annual revenue, which is very different from Shopify’s current customer base composed of entrepreneurs and SMBs.

So, how will Shopify appeal to enterprise retailers?

Best-in-Class Components
Shopify has spent the last two decades building, optimizing and scaling their infrastructure, which today powers over 10% of US eCommerce. Now it’s giving access to those high-performing components –like their checkout that converts 72% more customers than typical checkouts on desktop, and 91% better on mobile (source: Shopify).

Enterprise Brands on Shopify
Shopify is not completely unknown to the enterprise crowd. Their existing client roster includes brands like Staples, Steve Madden, Coty, JB Hi-FI, and Spanx, which worked with The Stable in 2021 to migrate their online store to Shopify and has worked with us ever since on growing their eCommerce business.

White Glove Service
Shopify Professional Services will focus entirely on supporting enterprise retailers in their move to Commerce Components by collaborating with agencies on designing and delivering tailored solutions based on a client’s business and technical needs from pre-sales to post-launch.

New Pricing Model
Commerce Components pricing model will be usage tier based and dependent upon the number of components a retailer needs, with the possibility to bundle multiple modules at a discounted price. This predictable model should be appealing to enterprise retailers who might experience large spikes in sales during holidays.

The launch of Commerce Components by Shopify is an exciting announcement for the agency ecosystem and enterprise retailers. For The Stable, it’s confirmation that the market is moving in the same direction as our vision for the future of eCommerce.

Over the last two years, our entire delivery organization has been overhauled to vehemently coincide with this way of thinking. We have spent countless hours developing a delivery methodology, Bedrock, which, alongside accompanying processes and procedures, enables consistency and predictability across sales, scoping, discovery, and on through development and QA. Our process takes advantage of and aligns directly with Shopify’s new modular approach.

Just recently, utilizing these new procedures, we were able to cut development time for an Algolia search integration from 45 days to just 3 days (read our case study on Fashion to Figure).

Get in touch to learn more about our delivery approach and how we can help you implement a faster and more agile tech stack with solutions like Commerce Components by Shopify.