Key takeaways:
Why composable commerce is often misperceived as complex and costly
Much of the hesitation around composable commerce stems from legacy experiences, in which B2B organizations equated modernization with long, disruptive, multi-year replatforming projects that often exceeded budgets and delivered little competitive advantage.
As a result, composable commerce is sometimes perceived as:
Architecturally complex due to multiple vendors and services.
Costly because of integrations and custom development.
Resource-intensive, requiring specialized developers.
Risky to implement alongside existing ERP and CPQ systems.
These misconceptions are common blockers that hinder organizations from modernizing their commerce infrastructures, putting their financial performance and future success at risk.
However, as many B2B organizations can attest, composable commerce can actually simplify the tech stacks while reducing costs over time.
How composable commerce reduces complexity in practice
Composable commerce simplifies B2B architectures by changing how systems evolve.
Instead of replacing everything at once, organizations incrementally introduce new capabilities alongside existing systems. Commerce becomes a set of loosely coupled services — pricing, carts, orders, catalogs, search — rather than a single, tightly bound application.
This approach reduces complexity in several important ways:
First, the scope becomes manageable. Teams can focus on solving specific business problems, such as digitizing reorders or automating quoting, without redesigning the entire landscape.
Second, failure is contained. When services are decoupled, issues in one component don’t cascade across the entire system, reducing operational risk.
Finally, change becomes routine. Adding, extending or replacing a capability is no longer a disruptive event, but an expected part of ongoing optimization.
For B2B organizations that must continuously adapt pricing models, workflows and customer experiences, this flexibility is critical.
An overview of how composable commerce reduces complexity and costs for B2B
Is composable technology only for digitally mature B2B companies?
Many assume composable commerce is reserved for digitally mature companies, but that’s not the case. In fact, composable architecture can help companies achieve digital maturity faster than legacy platforms.
Take B2B digital newcomers, for example. Many still lack eCommerce capabilities or have rudimentary, outdated online stores. Pricing transparency, order tracking and self-service tools are often nonexistent, leaving sales and customer engagement entirely person-to-person.
Can a composable architecture work in such scenarios? Absolutely.
Normet, a provider for underground mining and tunneling projects, relied on decades-long customer relationships handled via phone and email. Customers had no visibility into spare parts inventory, and the team struggled with slow, manual ordering processes. Instead of investing in a bulky legacy platform, Normet took a composable approach: Digitizing its 65,000-product catalog and automating the purchasing process with best-of-breed solutions. By focusing on its main customer pain points, Normet transformed its digital experience in just four months.
Other companies have followed similar paths:
Adelco, a B2B distributor in Chile, used composable commerce to launch a self-service portal for small businesses while successfully implementing hybrid sales.
LabelVie Group, a B2B distributor in Morocco, significantly accelerated its growth by launching a mobile-first eCommerce channel for its B2B brand, Atacadão, in just five months, utilizing the commercetools platform. Within weeks of launch, the app was generating €60,000 per day, highlighting deep demand among traditional retailers.
Many B2B firms building their digital footprint from scratch face the same challenge: Legacy platforms may seem convenient as a starting point, but their rigid, all-in-one architecture often limits customization, slows updates, and increases costs. In contrast, composable commerce lets companies start small, address critical pain points and gradually evolve.
When it comes to AI-driven search, advanced personalization or new integrations, composable architecture enables you to plug in features, experiment and adapt quickly. Legacy platforms, by comparison, often require months of planning and heavy implementation costs for similar upgrades.
In a nutshell, composable commerce is a practical, flexible path to rapid digital maturity for any B2B organization.
How can composable deliver a fast time to market?
Composable commerce excels in B2B environments because it aligns with how value is actually created: Incrementally and pragmatically.
Rather than waiting years for a “complete” platform, companies often launch in bite-sized implementations, such as:
A self-service spare parts experience.
Contract pricing visibility for key accounts.
Online quote creation or reordering.
Inventory availability and order tracking.
Each of these delivers immediate operational and customer value — and each can be delivered independently.
When using a phased migration approach — also known as the strangler pattern — integrations and platform enhancements can be tackled one at a time. Integrations can remain within the legacy system until the business is ready to port a given third-party system (or connect a new provider) to the new platform. For example, this could be timed to coincide with the end of a current contract or a renewal deadline.
Because composable platforms integrate cleanly with ERP, CPQ and CRM systems, teams avoid the delays associated with large-scale data migration or process rewrites. Many organizations reach production in months, not years, and continue to layer value over time.
Connecting your ERP and CPQ with commercetools
Integrating a commerce solution, such as commercetools, with an ERP and/or CPQ system is often a central aspect of a commerce project.
When integrating commercetools with an ERP system, consider using middleware to bridge the commerce platform and the ERP, facilitating communication and data exchange. It plays a vital role in ensuring that the integration is seamless, efficient and reliable. Read our ERP integration guide to learn more.
The integration of complex systems like SAP or Oracle Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) with commercetools bridges the gap between traditional back-office operations and modern digital commerce. If you use a CPQ system to manage your pricing and quoting, check out our CPQ integration guide.
How does composable accelerate agentic AI implementations?
As AI advances, B2B commerce is moving toward agentic models in which intelligent agents act autonomously on behalf of buyers, sellers and internal teams. Examples include automated quote generation, personalized reorder recommendations and AI-powered sales assistance.
Composable commerce provides the ideal foundation for agentic AI because its flexible architecture aligns naturally with AI-driven autonomy:
APIs give agents access to real-time data, enabling accurate, context-aware actions.
Modular services allow teams to experiment with AI capabilities — adding or adjusting features — without disrupting existing workflows.
Event-driven architectures let agents detect triggers and make autonomous decisions in real time.
Instead of retrofitting AI into rigid, all-in-one platforms, composable architectures let agentic capabilities emerge organically as extensions of the system. This means you can gradually introduce AI agents, test their effectiveness and scale successful implementations, accelerating innovation and minimizing risk.
Where does composable commerce reduce costs?
While composable commerce may appear more expensive upfront due to multiple components, the total cost of ownership (TCO) tells a different story.
Composable reduces cost — and maximizes your investment — by:
Eliminating unused features and oversized licenses.
Lowering implementation risk through smaller, phased investments.
Avoiding forced upgrades and replatforming cycles.
Improving developer efficiency through modern tooling and APIs-first infrastructure.
Enabling elastic scaling during traffic peaks without infrastructure overhead.
Most importantly, composable shifts spending from speculative, upfront commitments to value-driven, incremental investments. B2B organizations pay for what they need, when they need it — and can adjust as business priorities change.
How can B2B enterprises accelerate composable implementations and time to value with commercetools?
Composable commerce is a smarter path forward for B2B organizations navigating complexity, cost pressure and accelerating change. Here are some options to reduce implementation and time to value:
commercetools Foundry for B2B Manufacturing: A pre-composed solution combining commercetools products, best practices, integrations, expert services and store launchpads, enabling faster store creation and quicker time to market.
B2B-specific implementation partners and accelerators: Designed to streamline development, minimize risk and reduce time to market — all the while speeding up ROI — accelerators provide a structured path for B2B organizations to overcome these barriers and successfully launch their digital commerce initiatives.
Get started
Composable commerce lets B2B companies reduce complexity, lower costs and deliver value fast. By starting small, scaling modularly and leveraging AI-driven features, businesses can innovate quickly, adapt to changing markets and accelerate digital maturity — all without the risk and disruption of traditional replatforming.
Are you ready to take advantage of commercetools Composable Commerce for B2B? Download The Composable Commerce Migration Guide for B2B.
With over a decade of experience across product and marketing teams in the tech world, Julia specializes in creating innovative, customer-first strategies and driving cross-functional growth and go-to-market initiatives.
Manuela leads content strategy at commercetools. With over 20 years of experience in B2B SaaS, she writes about all things commerce by day and turns to fiction by night. She loves long walks, traveling, and, unsurprisingly, reading books.
