Composable Commerce in Retail: How Leading Brands Are Future-Proofing Customer Experience
The New Imperative: Agility, Modularity, and Customer-Centricity
Retail is evolving at an unprecedented pace. Today’s consumers expect seamless, personalized experiences across every channel—digital, physical, and everything in between. To keep up, leading retailers are reimagining their commerce platforms, moving away from monolithic, one-size-fits-all solutions toward a new paradigm: composable commerce.
Composable commerce is a modular approach to building digital commerce platforms. It empowers retailers to select and integrate best-of-breed components—such as product catalog, checkout, personalization, and order management—into a flexible, scalable architecture. This enables rapid innovation, operational efficiency, and the ability to deliver truly unified customer experiences.
Why Composable Commerce? The Business Case for Retailers
The shift to composable commerce is driven by several key benefits:
- Faster Innovation: Modular architectures allow retailers to quickly adopt new technologies, launch features, and respond to market changes without overhauling their entire platform.
- Seamless Omnichannel Experiences: By unifying data and processes across digital and physical touchpoints, retailers can deliver consistent, personalized journeys—whether customers are shopping online, in-store, or on social platforms.
- Operational Efficiencies: Decoupling systems reduces technical debt, streamlines maintenance, and enables teams to focus on value-adding activities rather than managing legacy complexity.
- Scalability and Flexibility: API-driven, cloud-native platforms make it easy to scale up or down, expand into new markets, and adapt to evolving business models.
Pandora: A Blueprint for Composable Commerce Transformation
Pandora, the world’s largest jewelry brand, exemplifies the power of composable commerce in action. Facing fragmented e-commerce systems and rising consumer expectations, Pandora partnered with Publicis Sapient to modernize its digital commerce and omnichannel capabilities.
Accelerating E-Commerce with Agile, Modular Platforms
Pandora’s journey began with the need to unify its global e-commerce presence. In the Asia-Pacific region, outdated and highly customized platforms made updates slow and costly. By adopting an agile approach and rebuilding on a common codebase, Pandora slashed migration time in half and increased release velocity from months to weeks. This modular foundation enabled rapid deployment of new features and ensured that all regions could benefit from global innovations without additional downtime.
Omnichannel Fulfillment and Unified Customer Journeys
The transformation extended beyond e-commerce. Publicis Sapient led the migration of Pandora’s order management to a cloud-based platform, enabling real-time inventory visibility, optimized returns, and new services like Click-and-Collect and Store Fulfillment. The result: greater inventory accuracy, improved customer service, and the ability to scale these innovations across new markets.
Data-Driven Personalization and AI
Pandora’s composable architecture also unified customer profiles across digital, retail, and mobile touchpoints. This enabled the brand to deliver personalized experiences and actionable insights, powered by AI, to drive engagement and sales. By reducing non-selling activities and providing a connected journey, Pandora elevated both customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.
Beyond Pandora: Retailers Embracing Composable Commerce
Pandora’s success is echoed by other leading retailers:
- Cavender’s: This iconic Western wear retailer is reimagining its commerce system with Headless Salesforce Commerce Cloud, unifying online and in-store experiences and positioning itself for future growth.
- A Global Consumer Beauty Brand: By developing a common e-commerce platform across multiple brands and geographies, this retailer accelerated time-to-market for new launches and enabled continuous innovation.
- Top Global Grocer: Through a decade-long partnership, a leading grocery retailer scaled its online platform internationally, optimized supply chain operations, and adopted agile engineering practices for significant revenue growth.
Publicis Sapient’s Approach: Making Composable Commerce a Reality
As a recognized leader in digital business transformation, Publicis Sapient partners with retailers to design, implement, and scale composable commerce solutions. Our approach is grounded in:
- Strategy and Roadmapping: We collaborate with clients to define a clear vision, prioritize initiatives, and create a phased roadmap for transformation.
- Best-of-Breed Technology Integration: Leveraging platforms like Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Data Cloud, and headless architectures, we assemble modular solutions tailored to each client’s needs.
- Agile Delivery and Continuous Optimization: Our cross-functional teams use agile methodologies to accelerate delivery, foster innovation, and ensure ongoing optimization.
- End-to-End Support: From ideation to implementation and beyond, we provide guidance, training, and managed services to ensure sustained success.
The Salesforce Advantage
Salesforce’s composable commerce capabilities—combined with Publicis Sapient’s deep expertise—enable retailers to:
- Rapidly deploy new commerce sites and features using accelerators and headless architecture
- Unify customer data for hyper-personalized engagement across all channels
- Integrate seamlessly with social platforms like TikTok and Meta for next-generation social commerce
- Harness AI and real-time analytics to drive smarter decisions and better outcomes
Future-Proofing Retail: Actionable Steps for Leaders
To thrive in the era of composable commerce, retail leaders should:
- Invest in agile, cross-functional teams to accelerate delivery and foster a culture of continuous improvement.
- Modernize legacy systems with cloud-based, API-first platforms that support rapid innovation and scalability.
- Prioritize omnichannel integration to deliver seamless, connected experiences across all customer touchpoints.
- Leverage data and AI to personalize engagement and optimize operations.
- Adapt global best practices to local market realities, ensuring relevance and compliance in each country.
Ready to Transform?
Composable commerce is not just a technology shift—it’s a business imperative for future-ready retail. By embracing modular, agile platforms and partnering with experts like Publicis Sapient, retailers can unlock new growth, deliver exceptional customer experiences, and stay ahead in a rapidly changing market.
Connect with our team to start your composable commerce journey today.