The next phase of global commerce infrastructure will be defined by flexibility.
Innovation over the past decade has made commerce increasingly accessible, efficient, and international; but it’s also meant that the needs of customers and the merchants that serve them have become more sophisticated and complex.
For businesses to succeed in this environment, they need tools which can be tailored to their brand, customer base, and operational needs — at a pace that’s measured in weeks, not months.
This means the days of the ecommerce platform as a “Swiss army knife” solution are over — the modern merchant needs the right tool for each of a dozen specific jobs.
The Five Tenets of Flexible Commerce seek to encapsulate what we think is important to achieve that flexibility and build infrastructure that’s ready to serve the next generation of retailers and their customers.
These tenets are not prescriptive about specific tools or technology; nor do they limit themselves in scope to a region, demographic, or channel. Rather, they are principles we can use to guide the decisions we make as merchants, vendors, and builders.
Merchants get better results from a considered selection of best-in-class tools working together instead of an all-in-one approach.
Tools that support rapid deployment, iteration, and scale can quickly respond to change and give merchants a competitive advantage over those using tools with delivery horizons measured in months and years.
Solutions driven by customer and merchant needs, rather than technical constraints imposed by tooling, provide the best outcome for everyone.
Every merchant is a global merchant. Tools that cater to multi-lingual, multi-currency, multi-regional customers from day one get an edge in a globalised world.
Tools that eschew walled gardens and make their core building blocks accessible to the world drive interoperability, efficiency, and innovation.
In case you’ve noticed, yes — the Five Tenets spell “CARGO”. It’s unintentional, but has the happy result that subscribing to the Flexible Commerce philosophy can be described as joining a CARGO cult.
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