How to Build the Ideal eCommerce Tech Stack 

When you’re looking to build your eCommerce tech stack, there are a ton of things you’ll need to consider. Your specific business requirements and objectives will ultimately determine which solutions you should go for. But, when you’ve got so many different options and functionalities, finding the right software solutions can be a challenge.

With the eCommerce industry set to grow by 50% by 2025, eCommerce sites are going to need to cater to larger volumes of traffic. Without the right systems in place, you risk falling behind the competition. Growth and scalability need to be front and center of your decision-making to guarantee the best possible customer experience. So, when looking at different eCommerce technologies, start by asking yourself the following:

• Will this solution help me meet my objectives?
• What resources will I need to get the most from these solutions?
• Is it going to be scalable and future-proofed?

Keep reading to get the full lowdown on the key technologies you should consider when building your eCommerce technology stack, including:

• Product Lifecycle Management
• Enterprise SaaS Product Information Management (PIM)
• Digital Asset Management
• Inventory and order management
• Enterprise Resouce Planning
• Analytics
• eCommerce platforms
• Multichannel listing tools
• Payment processing

What is an eCommerce tech stack?

A technology stack is a mix of tools, apps, programming languages, and platforms used to develop a website or a mobile application. In the context of eCommerce, it’s all the systems that facilitate the effective marketing and sale of products online. It’s referred to as a stack as they are often layered, each performing different tasks at the different stages of the buyer journey. Here’s what that looks like:

Technology stacks are made up of the backend which is server-side, and the front-end which is the client-side. In terms of the front-end, most eCommerce businesses opt for a headless approach. This is when the front-end is disconnected from the back-end, meaning it can be updated without interfering with the back-end. As a result, you can make incremental changes and improvements to refine the customer experience to better influence your KPIs.

The two primary software development frameworks are LAMP (Linux, Apache Web Server, MySQL, and PHP) and MEAN (MongoDB, Express.js, AngularJS, and NodeJS). They’re both very different and which one you choose will depend on your business objectives and available resources.

For instance, LAMP is the most well-established open-source framework with a large community that offers support. You’ll need to ensure you have a strong team of developers with different skill-sets to deliver projects using LAMP. The downside is that it’s not very scalable, and it’s relatively low-performance which isn’t ideal for an eCommerce business.

On the other hand, MEAN is a more modern framework and all the tools use Javascript so you’re looking at full-stack web development. In addition, most LAMP developers will have knowledge of Javascript, so building a good team will be easy. MEAN is also much more suited to larger-scale projects, so it’s ideal if you want to build an eCommerce store designed for growth and scalability.

Choosing the right technology for eCommerce success

With growing demand and expectations from online shoppers, it’s imperative to ensure the solutions you go for enable you to deliver amazing levels of customer service. Tap into the many benefits of personalization or hyper-personalization with artificial intelligence (AI) tools. You can also think about augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) capabilities so customers can properly visualize your products. Not to mention everything else from marketing, communicating your sustainability credentials, inventory management, and tracking, to payment processing and post-purchase services.

Now, let’s take a look at some of the different technologies you can explore for your eComm tech stack. Once you’ve scoped out your costs, you’ll also need to balance speed with maintenance requirements and identify which labor-intensive tasks you want to automate. Below, we’ve set out nine of the key components of any eCommerce tech stack.

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)

All in all, Product Lifecycle Management systems do what they say on the tin. They help you monitor products as they move through the product lifecycle, from ideation, right through to commercialization. In other words, they oversee manufacturing workflows and enable different departments involved in product creation to collaborate. Important to note that PLM software is only required by businesses involved in the manufacturing of products.

Examples of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Technologies:

Enterprise SaaS Product Information Management (PIM)

Product Information Management platforms enable you to gather, store, enrich, and distribute product data from one central hub. Create a single source of truth for all your product information, content, and digital assets required to effectively market and sell your products on and offline. PIM platforms automate up to 80% of manual tasks relating to product data management, which will massively boost productivity. Check out the diagram below to see the PIM set-up, and how it fits in with other tools and solutions:

In addition, working from a central hub enables different departments to collaborate with ease and efficiency so you can quickly get your products to market. Any good PIM solution will enable you to easily reach new sales channels and territories, which is a must in the ever-competitive eCommerce environment. Overall, you can totally streamline large aspects of product data management so you can focus on wider business objectives.

Some of the PIM platforms out there include: 

Digital Asset Management (DAM)

Like PIM platforms, Digital Asset Management (DAM) software enables you to store all your digital assets in a central location. Collect them from any number of internal or external data sources. You can then enrich and distribute them across all your sales channels with ease and speed, ensuring they’re all optimized for the different channels they’ll be published to.

A good DAM system will give you the ability to store large volumes of different file formats. As we mentioned earlier, the use of AR and VR is on the rise. DAM software supports these file types, as well as PDF documents, audio files, images, videos, and much more. As such, you can create totally confident customers by serving them with high-quality assets that enable them to clearly visualize your products.

Here are some DAM solutions you can look at: 

Inventory and order management

Inventory and order management are two key aspects of making sure you deliver a seamless and satisfying online product experience. They keep track of and update all information relating to stock level, orders, and deliveries. Typically, this information would previously be stored in Excel Spreadsheets, which are hard to keep up-to-date and accurate.

Inventory and order management systems enable you to avoid overstocking and understocking of products. The right solutions will show you which products perform well at different times of the year, so you can maximize sales with data-driven insights. Furthermore, you need a solution that enables you to show real-time stock levels on your online store. The reason is twofold. Firstly, you won’t disappoint customers by offering a product that isn’t available. Secondly, you can create a sense of urgency by letting customers know when stock levels are low.

A selection of inventory and order management systems you could look at: 

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

ERP solutions are designed to help organizations manage a range of business processes. In addition, it also provides the capabilities to gather, store, manage and analyze data from multiple different business activities. These include day-to-day tasks such as accounting, procurement, project management, risk and compliance, and supply chain operations.

While ERPs can also manage data relating to your products, like SKUs, weights, and dimensions, they’re not designed to manage other rich types of product content required to effectively market and sell products online. This is where your ERP will work wonderfully in tandem with your PIM. You can import the data from your ERP to your PIM. From there, you can then add your marketing copy, digital assets, and everything else you need to blow your customers away.

ERP technologies to consider: 

Analytics

Analytics tools are a vital component for any business, especially for an eCommerce business looking to improve the online experience. These tools help you collect, store, and analyze large amounts of data on your customers. For instance, this might include demographics, regions, as well as their wants and needs at specific periods of the year. Whereas others are more focused on Customer Experience (CX) and will help you identify lost baskets due to subtle technical glitches or slowdowns.

Understanding how your customers behave will form the backbone of your eCommerce strategy. Once you have an understanding of their behavior, tendencies, and preferences, you can use this data to attract more customers. Most analytics tools will also provide you with easy-to-interpret dashboards so you can action changes to maximize your performance.

Some of the top analytics tools you can use: 

eCommerce platforms

No eCommerce business would be complete without a sturdy eCommerce platform to support its growth ambitions. eCommerce platforms facilitate the sale of products online between merchants and customers. They have functionalities that range from web hosting, marketing, inventory management, payment processing, and order fulfillment.

In other words, your eCommerce platform brings your products to life and enables you to list online so customers can find them. Your eCommerce platform could take the form of an online marketplace, or it could be your own eCommerce website. Remember, the type of eCommerce platform you select will depend on your business objectives, as well as the solutions you already have in place. This is because some platforms may offer similar functionalities as other tools you already have.

A range of some of the leading eCommerce platforms: 

Multichannel listing tools

In the current eCommerce climate, making sure your products get found wherever customers are looking is one of the best ways of maintaining a competitive edge. Multichannel listing tools enable you to take advantage of the growing number of sales channels. Each sales channel essentially has its own search engine. Just like Google, there’ll be certain requirements you need to meet to ensure your products get surfaced in customer searches.

Multichannel listing tools automate the process of gathering all the variations of your product data for multiple channels. Overall, this means it’s super easy to ensure you meet all the specific requirements of the different sales channels you’re listing on. So, whether you’re listing on Esty, TikTok, or Amazon, you can serve customers totally accurate and consistent product data.

Here’s a range of multichannel listing tools: 

Payment processing

To guarantee the best online experience, you need to ensure the entire process is totally seamless from start to finish. This includes the payment process, which is why it’s vital to have robust payment processing systems in place. Around 50% of people will abandon a purchase if they can’t access their preferred payment method, so having a variety of options will likely contribute to lower cart abandon rates.

Some eCommerce platforms offer payment processing services, so depending on how your eCommerce tech stack is set up, you might not need to look at other options. However, if this isn’t the case, you need a means of accepting online payments from your customers. Payment processing platforms enable you to accept payments in different currencies and from multiple sources. This will include credit/debit cards, digital wallets, PayPal, and sometimes even cryptocurrencies. There will also be systems in place that will protect your customers’ payment data.

Check out some of these payment processing platforms

Next steps

Yes, there’s a lot to digest. And yes – subscription fees can soon build up. Like we said, your business and visions are unique, so it’s likely your eCommerce tech stack will be too. To add to that, it can be a case of trial and error. Before committing to certain solutions, it’s always good to see if you can test them out with a free trial.

Most importantly, you need to clearly define your objectives, where you want to go, and how long you want it to take. When choosing a platform, you can also consider reaching out to peers in your industry. This will give you an idea of the tools that are most suited to your industry. You can also check out reviews from dedicated software sites like G2 and Captera.

All in all, there are always going to be tools that have similar functionalities to the other ones you’re looking at. So, it’s well worth doing the research as it can end up saving you a pretty penny! Building your eCommerce tech stack is the first step in enabling your business to thrive and achieve eCommerce excellence. Pretty exciting, right?