The impact of composable commerce on peak traffic moments: Black Friday and beyond

by Marina Rusinow

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Summer has come and gone, and soon we enter the season retailers plan for all year long. It starts with back-to-school shopping and Labor Day sales and then snowballs into pre-holiday deals, Amazon specials, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday … oh my! Who can keep up? It’s no wonder e-commerce businesses are investing in technology to ensure their sites don’t crash in the middle of these high-traffic periods. To put the opportunity into perspective, technology provider Salesforce Inc. reported U.S. Black Friday online retail sales reached $17.2 billion.

The patterns of "holiday shopping" have undergone a significant transformation thanks to e-commerce. This shift not only elongates the duration and timeframes of shopping activities but stretches and blurs the conventional notion of seasonal patterns in "holiday" shopping.

Back when consumers set their alarm clocks to wake up before the sun and tackle the good sales, brands could focus on revenue goals alone. Now that shoppers are more likely to set their alarms and open their computers, still in their pajamas with coffee in hand, businesses are required to account for every aspect of the customer journey — from discovery to conversion. 

In order to cater to today’s pajama-clad Black Friday shopper, companies need to consider the complete e-commerce experience: from page load times, the possibility of site crashes, the reviews, resources that help consumers make smart decisions and, lastly, a smooth checkout experience with options like curb-side pickup or easy financing. 

So how can businesses stay ahead of their competition and build an e-commerce engine to deliver on shopper expectations without disruptions and technical snafus? The answer is composable commerce. 

In this article, we’ll guide you through how a composable DXP (digital experience platform) powers personalized omnichannel content, and share how to leverage these tools to supercharge your e-commerce performance. For the purpose of this article, we’ll focus on Black Friday success, however, a composable commerce engine is the key to transforming the online shopper experience of Black Friday and beyond.

The Expense of scalability challenges

Given that website performance leaves a tangible imprint on both SEO rankings and conversion rates, brands are compelled to accelerate their efforts in delivering swift, mobile-centric and seamlessly integrated omnichannel experiences. While the holiday season historically ushers in a surge of online shopping, the realm of high-volume digital transactions extends throughout the year, encompassing far more than just Black Friday. This underscores the necessity for brands to remain equipped to tackle unforeseen spikes in demand at any given moment.

The bottom line is that companies need to be ready for unexpected surges in shoppers anytime. Think about it: how well a website works impacts both how easily people find it on search engines and how likely they are to buy something. Brands need to step up their game by making sure their websites are super fast, work well on smartphones, and offer a seamless shopping experience across different channels. Sure, we all know the holidays mean a shopping frenzy online, but really, people are buying stuff online all year round, not just on Black Friday. 

The good news is there's a straightforward way to tackle these hurdles: using modern e-commerce solutions that team up with big names like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and Microsoft Azure, along with an endless ecosystem of partners to help scale your e-commerce operation into a fine-tuned machine. With more computing power, companies have their best sales days ahead. 

Marketing technology makes all the difference

In today's digital world, the potential of e-commerce is vast, especially when it comes to peak-season sales. One of the key technological advancements in the retail industry is the ability to leverage a headless content management system (CMS) and a composable DXP to streamline and personalize their customers' online shopping experiences.

What is composable commerce?

Composable commerce refers to the process of using modular, API-driven and interoperable components to design, build and manage your e-commerce store. This approach enables businesses to create a seamless and interconnected shopping experience by integrating various components (such as inventory management, payment gateways, and marketing tools) with their existing e-commerce platform.

How composable commerce helps retailers drive sales during peak traffic

During events like Black Friday, a substantial influx of traffic can strain your e-commerce infrastructure, resulting in reduced performance or even system crashes. Composable commerce can mitigate this risk by enabling flexible and scalable solutions. Here's how:

  1. Adaptability: Composable commerce components can be easily added, removed, or modified, allowing you to scale and adapt your e-commerce store to fluctuating traffic and customer demands.

  2. Reduced latency: With API-driven composable commerce solutions, retailers can optimize their loading times, ensure faster transactions and maintain a seamless shopping experience even at peak traffic hours.

  3. Enhanced user experience: Composable commerce enables businesses to harness the power of personalized content, impressing customers with relevant recommendations, promotions and targeted messaging.

  4. Lastly, one of the main advantages of composable commerce is its ability to manage high traffic volumes during peak sales events like Black Friday. This is achieved by distributing the load across multiple servers, enabling your e-commerce platform to become highly scalable and resilient.

How a composable DXP powers personalized omnichannel content

A composable DXP is designed to integrate with various marketing tools and channels, amplifying your brand's presence across multiple touchpoints. With a composable DXP, you can:

  1. Deliver personalized content: With headless CMS integration, retailers can funnel targeted content to different customer groups based on their preferences, browsing habits and purchase history.

  2. Enable omnichannel content: By integrating with POS systems, mobile apps, social media and more, a composable DXP helps shrink the gap between online and offline shopping experiences.

  3. Improve conversion rates: By providing a seamless shopping experience, retailers can reduce cart abandonment rates and boost conversions during Black Friday sales.

By integrating a Headless CMS with a composable DXP, marketers can craft unique, dynamic content and seamlessly distribute it across multiple channels, such as web, mobile and social media.

This new infrastructure allows for a quicker and more efficient response to customer needs, ensuring a consistent and engaging user experience throughout the customer journey.

Supercharge marketing agility and flexibility with composable commerce

In a world where consumers have their credit card numbers programmed into their phones for one-click transactions, every factor of the shopper experience matters. As industries face increasing competition, the role of composable commerce in fueling the success of Black Friday sales and other critical e-commerce moments cannot be underestimated. 

By harnessing the power of modern marketing technologies, such as a headless CMS and composable DXP, businesses can enhance their customers' experiences, ensuring Black Friday success and winning over loyal customers for the next shopping season. 

Now is the time to supercharge your marketing agility and harness the power of personalized omnichannel content to drive success across your e-commerce operations. Stay ahead of the curve and transform the way you engage your customers. After all, any day could deliver a Black Friday-like traffic spike. Prepare your business for the unexpected with composable commerce to win over and retain repeat customers and scale your operations.

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About the author

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Marina Rusinow is a Senior Manager of Solutions Marketing at Contentstack with over a decade of product marketing experience

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