The Challenges Developers Face Without a Modern Ecommerce CMS

Developers and IT staff are crucial for the success of any software system; however, they can often be held back by cumbersome tools that aren’t fit for succeeding in today’s ecommerce environment.

Complex legacy systems may have been appropriate in years gone by but over time, they have become difficult to maintain. This means that developers need to spend longer than they want to struggle to integrate the latest tools and technologies the business needs to advance.

Another issue that crops up as a result of this is that departments that need to work together and share information like marketing, IT, and merchandising end up becoming siloed. This, in turn, puts added pressure on developers as they need to assist these departments with other tasks. This pulls them away from their core responsibilities and makes teams wonder why they have so few resources available to them.

The consequences of not having the right ecommerce system at your disposal are vast, so those in the B2B industry need to ensure that it meets all of their requirements.

5 Things Developers Need From an Ecommerce CMS

1. Headless and API-first Architecture

Developers want their ecommerce CMS to follow a headless approach and use API-first architecture. As the customer journey now spans a host of different channels and touchpoints, they need the ability to deliver content and shopping experiences to these channels easily.

With headless architecture, developers are given the freedom to choose the best frameworks and tools to use when creating shopping experiences rather than be restricted by pre-defined templates. APIs make the connections to those channels much easier so that ecommerce experiences can be created for the brand website and ecommerce shop, but also IoT devices, digital kiosks, and other areas where the audience may come across content.

2. Native Integrations

Companies can’t afford to have the other tools within their tech stack isolated from the CMS. A modern ecommerce CMS should provide native integrations with the most popular tools so that staff can toggle between software without feeling overwhelmed. With native integrations, developers can save precious time implementing the CMS as well as the other tools critical for the ecommerce journey.

3. Agile Development Flexibility

Unlike legacy systems that have long implementation processes that are drawn out for months, a modern ecommerce CMS should be quick to implement to avoid slowing down the latest campaigns. Also, developers should have access to low code tooling, making other development tasks faster and more efficient.

4. Multiple Hosting Options

For B2B companies, multiple hosting options are critical, whether they want to maintain complete control over the system in-house, rely on fully-managed cloud services, or use a hybrid of both models.

5. Advanced Security

Threats to an ecommerce shop can be not only detrimental to the brand but also to the internal systems, personal customer information and more. An ecommerce CMS that caters to a B2B audience should have authorization and authentication services, roles and permissions, and other security features to keep information safe so that IT and developers can spend time on other tasks.