Discover how to enhance your Adobe Commerce platform with composable commerce, API-first development, and Edge Delivery Services. Learn strategies for flexibility, performance, and seamless integration.

A recent session led by Russell Albin, a Senior Technical Marketing Engineer and Principal Technical Architect at Adobe, focused on The Modern Approach: Effective Extensibility in Adobe Commerce. Drawing on over 13 years of experience in e-commerce, Russell shared insights into the tools and strategies that can help streamline your operations and significantly reduce the total cost of ownership.

Primary themes and key takeaways

1. Composable commerce

Composable commerce is an approach that allows businesses to build their commerce applications by integrating individual business services, sometimes from different vendors. This method offers flexibility, agility, and the ability to tailor the commerce experience to unique business needs. This approach offers several benefits:

• Flexibility and customization: Composable commerce allows businesses to select and integrate individual services from various vendors, allowing them to tailor the commerce experience to specific business needs. If you are interested in learning more about composable commerce strategies for scalable and agile e-commerce, you can watch this webinar.
• Agility and speed: This approach enables faster implementation of new features and capabilities, reducing the time to market and allowing businesses to respond quickly to changing market demands.
• Reduced technical debt: By adopting a composable approach, businesses can minimize technical debt, making it easier to maintain and update their commerce systems.

2. API-first and event-driven architecture

• API-first development: Leveraging APIs allows for rapid integration with back-office systems and the creation of new customer touchpoints. This approach supports a modular and scalable architecture.
• Webhooks and real-time customization: Webhooks enable real-time customization and extension of native processes, such as customer account creation and checkout, by injecting custom logic from third-party systems.
• Event-driven architecture: Acting on events in real-time or near real-time enhances responsiveness and customer experience. Adobe Commerce exposes numerous events that can trigger actions and integrate with other systems.

3. Performance and extensibility

• Edge Delivery Services: These services ensure high performance with response times under 250 milliseconds and scalability by allowing independent scaling of services. They also help maintain high Lighthouse scores, starting near 100. If you want to learn more about Edge Delivery Services with Adobe Commerce, watch this webinar.

• UI extensibility: Extending the admin UI using Adobe’s App Builder and UI components allows for creating secure, scalable single-page applications without affecting the core PHP codebase. This approach reduces the risk associated with upgrades and simplifies code development.
• Back office integration starter kit: This kit simplifies integration with ERP, PIM, OMS, or CRM systems, reducing development time and costs. It provides a framework for scalable and maintainable integrations tailored to unique business needs. Here are some tutorials for learning more about the Adobe Commerce starter kit for back-office integrations.

These themes highlight the strategic approaches and practical tips for implementing Adobe Commerce, ensuring a flexible, high-performing, and easily maintainable e-commerce platform.

Russell Albin’s Pro Tips for Mastering Adobe Commerce

Key Strategies for Adobe Commerce Implementation

1. Utilize Adobe’s App Builder and API Mesh

• Simplified integration: Use App Builder and API Mesh to integrate third-party services quickly.
• Event-driven architecture: Act on real-time events, enhancing responsiveness and customer experience.

Adobe’s App Builder is a cloud-native development platform that enables developers to create custom applications and integrations for Adobe Commerce. Key benefits include:

• Serverless environment: Run applications in a secure, scalable serverless environment, reducing the need for infrastructure management.
• Custom logic: Inject custom logic into native processes like order management or customer account creation without modifying the core codebase.
• Integration with third-party services: Quickly integrate with third-party services using API Mesh, which supports GraphQL, REST, and SOAP APIs.
• Event handling: Subscribe to and act on various events exposed by Adobe Commerce, enabling real-time or near real-time responses to customer actions. Here is a tutorial to configure your Adobe Commerce instance to send invents to your App Builder application.

2. Utilize live search

• Real-time indexing: Ensures that new products and changes are reflected in search results almost instantly.
• Personalized results: Uses customer behavior and preferences to tailor search results, improving the shopping experience.
• Advanced filtering: Allows customers to refine their search with various filters, making it easier to find specific products.

Adobe Commerce’s Live Search feature leverages Adobe Sensei, an AI and machine learning technology, to deliver highly relevant search results. Here is a tutorial for learning more about Live Search as well as some documentation on best practices.

Pro tips for effective implementation

1. Start small and scale

• Begin with simpler modules or features and gradually move to more complex integrations.

2. Focus on UI extensibility

• Extend the admin UI by adding new functionalities or custom pages without affecting the core PHP codebase.

• Use React and Adobe’s UI components to build secure, scalable single-page apps.

3. Optimize performance with Edge Delivery

• Start with high Lighthouse scores and maintain them by detecting and addressing issues quickly.

• Use Edge Delivery Services to ensure your site remains fast and responsive.

4. Utilize the back office integration starter kit

• Using the starter kit simplifies integrations with ERP, PIM, OMS, or CRM systems.

• Tailor integrations to your unique business needs, reducing development time and costs.

5. Embrace event-driven data layer

• Deploy a standardized data schema to send real-time data across Adobe and third-party systems.

• Integrate with Adobe Experience Cloud products for enhanced personalization and customer insights.

6.  Flexibility and customization

• Choose capabilities as needed, allowing for a tailored commerce experience

Conclusion

Implementing Adobe Commerce effectively requires a strategic approach and the right tools. By adopting a composable commerce strategy, leveraging API-first development, and utilizing Adobe’s App Builder, API Mesh, and Edge Delivery Services, businesses can create a seamless, high-performing digital commerce experience. Start small, focus on UI extensibility, and optimize performance to ensure a successful implementation.