Deciphering Common Ecommerce Development Terms

“One that accelerates”

Merriam-Webster is not all that helpful regarding our use case for the word accelerator. 

At Acro Commerce, when we use the word accelerator, we are talking about our process and technical framework for getting a development project underway and launced as quickly as possible. An accelerator minimizes the effort required to get to market without sacrificing functionality or customer experience. Gesso is a decoupled accelerator for ecommerce.

Web Accessibility is the inclusive practice of ensuring that no barriers prevent interaction with or access to websites on the Internet by people with physical disabilities, situational disabilities, and socio-economic restrictions on bandwidth and speed. When sites are correctly designed, developed, and edited, more users have equal access to information and functionality. 

At Acro Commerce, we bake accessibility standards into our development processes to meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and the many laws that enforce these standards across the globe, including the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

“Marked by ready ability to move with quick, easy grace.” - Merriam-Webster

Again, the dictionary definition doesn’t quite get to the heart of what agile means at Acro. For us, agile means a process or methodology that we have created that aligns with the twelve principles behind the Agile Manifesto for Software Development.

We also use the term agile to illustrate the nimbleness that we strive for in a development project and aim to embed in our client’s technical setup.

The back end of a website refers to everything not visible on the publicly exposed front end. There are three elements of the back-end of a website that back-end developers focus on, including the server, application, and database.

When we refer to architecture at Acro Commerce, we are talking about the setup and connection of your interconnected systems. Since our specialty is in ecommerce, architecture is often paired with commerce in our conversations.

Together, commerce architecture refers to the technical design and infrastructure of an ecommerce website, including the hardware and software components, such as servers, databases and programming languages.

Sometimes, when our teams discuss "composable," we use Lego analogies. Modular," "building blocks," and "swappable" are also used in conversations about composable.

But, at the heart of it all, composable is the idea that your company can switch any item in your commerce architecture for a compatible tool, improving your ability to experiment, scale, and rapidly react to changing market conditions.

“Composable commerce is a modular approach to building ecommerce platforms, where businesses can select and integrate various technologies to create a tailored solution. This flexibility allows for quick adaptation to market changes and customer needs, promoting innovation and offering a competitive advantage.” - Shopify

“Customer experience (CX) refers to how a business engages with its customers at every point of their buying journey—from marketing to sales to customer service and everywhere in between. In large part, it’s the sum total of all interactions a customer has with your brand.” - Oracle

Decoupled architecture separates—or decouples—a website's back and front ends into two different systems. One system controls content creation and storage. One or more other systems ingest that data and present it to the user through an interface or device like a web browser or a mobile app.

In simpler terms, when we use the word decoupled, we are referring to a setup of your technical infrastructure to make it more modular and separate the front end from the back end, improving flexibility and the composability of your overall systems.

A development framework is the method and tools we have compiled to ensure the quick delivery of customer projects. Gesso is an example of a development framework, accelerating the delivery of a decoupled commerce architecture and ecommerce-based website designed specifically for your business’s needs.

“Digital maturity measures an organization’s ability to create value through digital. It is also a key predictor of success for companies launching a digital transformation.” - Boston Consulting Group

An organization requires specific foundational maturities to have the technological know-how to recognize the need for digital transformation and innovation.

Digital natives are people who have grown up under the influence of modern technology and the internet. 

“Digital natives think, learn, and understand the world around them differently from people who have not been as subjected to modern technology.” - Investopedia

In B2B business, we are seeing Millenials and Gen Z employees rise into important positions in organizations, changing how we need to serve our clients.

“Digital transformation can refer to anything from IT modernization (for example, cloud computing), to digital optimization to the invention of new digital business models. The term is widely used in public-sector organizations to refer to modest initiatives such as putting services online or legacy modernization. Thus, the term is more like “digitization” than “digital business transformation.” - Gartner

Software end-of-life occurs when the company or its creator no longer supports it. End-of-life occurs for many reasons, but the two major reasons are that there is a new version of the software or it has been sunsetted, meaning the creator has decided that continuing to update the software on their end is no longer a viable business situation. We often shorten the term to EOL because we love acronyms. 

A website’s front end is the publicly visible version of your web architecture. It is where people can interact with your content and brand and is the visual presentation of the data that your company wants to present to the world. 

This is, by all rights, a straight-up buzzword. However, we use it to emphasize the advantages of moving to a decoupled and integrated commerce architecture. While we can’t predict the future, building adaptable and scalable elements into your operational infrastructure helps lessen the impact of changes you may need to make to keep up with technology changes down the line.

Gesso is Acro Commerce’s decoupled accelerator: an architecture that enables separate components or layers to execute independently but interact with each other through well-defined protocols.

Gesso minimizes the effort required to get to market while fulfilling the functionality and ideal customer experience.

Headless architecture separates the website's frontend user interface (UI) from its backend (business logic) layer.

"By separating backend operations from frontend experiences, manufacturers are free to create the ideal digital story that resonates with individual customers while overcoming the complexities of choosing platforms and navigating compatibility issues. B2B Manufacturers can now quickly create the ideal buying experience that fits their complex products and services.” - Shae Inglis, CEO of Acro Commerce

We often use the term infrastructure in the same context as “architecture” or “commerce architecture.” It refers to how a company organizes its operational systems and platforms and how that infrastructure works with other applications or platforms that the company uses daily.

Our ebook, Understanding The Three Approaches To Digital Commerce Architecture, is an excellent resource for learning how your company could set up or transform your technical infrastructure.

API integrations and modern web services allow for secure data transmission between two or more systems, keeping your information flowing and improving enterprise business intelligence and operations.

• Integrations allow your teams to make product, marketing, and content updates without help from developers. 
• Leveraging connected data allows adding new customer-focused features without starting from scratch. 
• Custom integrations allow you to get the most out of your critical systems while not allowing stock functionality to get in your way.

Integration needs cross-business groups to facilitate payments, content, ERP systems, CRM systems, email platforms, warehousing, taxes and fulfillment. We help bring those groups together for you through integration development.

“Iteration is the repetition of a process in order to generate a sequence of outcomes. Each repetition of the process is a single iteration, and each iteration's outcome is the starting point of the next iteration.” - Wikipedia

In web development, we use the term iteration in reference to the process of continuous improvement through our agile project management processes. 

When we use the term legacy systems, we refer to the collection of systems that your company relies on daily but that may not be easily connected to other more modern systems. These could be older programs, monolithic systems with proprietary data, or even custom-built homebrew systems.

Modular is the concept that platforms or systems can be treated individually without affecting the entire infrastructure or ecosystem. Modular components can be swapped in or out as business needs dictate, making the entire system more composable.

“Monolithic architecture is the traditional model used by most software programs. These solutions are generally large and self-contained. The platform may have many modules, but the modules are all interconnected. A change in one module usually necessitates a change in other areas and may require you to redeploy the entire solution. “ - OROCommerce, eCommerce Site Architecture

Multichannel refers to the ability to reach your customers and sell your products on multiple channels.

When we talk about multichannel, we’re talking about reaching customers through platforms other than our website. 

For example, let’s say we have a successful ecommerce website, but we’re looking to open up new revenue streams. Customers buying products similar to ours may be buying them through Amazon or eBay. Maybe they’re also buying similar products on Facebook, Etsy or Google. Maybe there’s even enough demand for our product that we can explore opening a physical retail location.

All of these are additional channels where we can potentially start selling our products, hence multichannel.

Get more information: What's the Difference Between Multichannel and Omnichannel?

Omnichannel is the ability to manage a unified brand experience that reaches your customers on multiple channels.

The nature of omnichannel is that everything you do is connected through a single data source to provide that seamless user experience no matter how your customers make contact. 

The benefit of omnichannel marketing is that, if done well, your customers can gain confidence in your brand and achieve brand loyalty. Through all of the different points of contact, your brand message is unified, and you can theoretically have a greater influence on your customer's buying habits. Not only that, but your customers now have the convenience of doing business with you in whatever way is most comfortable for them.

Get more information: What's the Difference Between Multichannel and Omnichannel?

“Open-source software is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Open-source software may be developed in a collaborative, public manner.” - Wikipedia

To learn more, check out our ebook: The Advantages of Open Source Commerce

Imagine if your client logs inot your website, they see a catalogue that's tailored to their specific needs. Perhaps they have specific products that are related to previous purchases they made, or you have a tiered pricing structure, and they're presented with their pricing across your entire website. It's like having a virtual sales assistant who knows your customers inside and out. This is the power of a personalization strategy and can improve brand consistency and user experience.

Replatforming refers to switching out one platform for an entirely different or significantly upgraded version of your original one.

For example, swapping your CMS from WordPress to Storyblok is a replatforming project. Yet, moving from Drupal 6 to Drupal 10 is also a replatforming project since you are moving from one unsupported major version to a new, significantly upgraded version.

“Responsive web design, or RWD, is a design approach that addresses the range of devices and device sizes, enabling automatic adaption to the screen, whether the content is viewed on a tablet, phone, television, or watch. Responsive web design isn't a separate technology — it is an approach.” - Mozilla, MDN Web Docs

The term “rip & replace” refers to the strategy of a full replacement of any system and the process of replatforming. Often, this strategy involves reorganizing your entire architecture. When using monolithic platforms, this can become cyclical, occurring every few years, and is quite costly and time-consuming. 

When we use the word scalable, we are talking about the ability of your systems and platforms to grow with your business. The goal of scalable infrastructure is adaptability and flexibility, improving your business agility.

“Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the process used to optimize a website's technical configuration, content relevance and link popularity so its pages can become easily findable, more relevant and popular towards user search queries, and as a consequence, search engines rank them better.” - Mailchimp

At Acro Commerce, we build in SEO best practices in our development process but do not offer content or marketing services related to SEO.

The term siloed refers to standalone, isolated systems. Siloed systems are unable to share data easily without manual intervention. Disconnected data from siloed systems is trapped in legacy systems, disconnected workflows and standalone platforms instead of being shared effectively to fuel business model decisions, create opportunities with customers and identify areas that need better operational efficiency.

“The term swivel chair process comes from the idea of manually entering the same data into multiple systems, entering it once in one place, then swivelling your chair around and entering that data in another place, and so on. Eliminating swivel chair processes can have a massive impact in reducing business overhead, streamlining efficiencies, and therefore increasing profit.” - Eliminating Swivel Chair Processes in Ecommerce

“UI or User Interface design focuses on a product's aesthetic styles and interactive states. Working from the UX research and wireframes, a UI designer creates the interface that a customer would use to interact with a product or service.” - Demystifying the Design Process: UI/UX Explained

“Unified commerce is the practice of connecting your backend systems with your customer-facing channels via a single platform. It’s the setup companies require in order to support omnichannel journeys and create a unified view of shopper interactions, products, and management systems.” - BigCommerce

Learn more: Omnichannel Commerce vs. Unified Commerce

“User experience (UX) design is a human-centred approach to creating products or services. This means UX design can be applied to anything a person interacts with, such as a website, app, car, toaster, or even airport check-in.” -  Demystifying the Design Process: UI/UX Explained

“Vendor lock, also known as proprietary lock-in or customer lock-in, makes a customer dependent on a vendor for products, unable to use another vendor without substantial switching costs.” - Wikipedia

Vendor lock is a side effect of monolithic platforms that can be mostly avoided by building an infrastructure centred on a composable strategy and open-source platforms.