E-commerce Platforms: Architecture and Best Practices
E-commerce Platforms: Architecture and Best Practices Modern e-commerce platforms must be fast, reliable, and easy to evolve. A clear architecture helps teams ship features without breaking customer experience. Start by outlining the main layers: a responsive frontend, an API-driven backend, a solid data layer, and well-integrated services for payments, shipping, and content. Key architectural layers include: Frontend: customer-facing experiences, often planned as static site generation or dynamic apps that load quickly on any device. Backend services: domain logic and business rules, organized as modular services or microservices with stable APIs. Data layer: product catalogs, customers, orders, inventory, and analytics. Teams choose separate databases per service or carefully bounded schemas. Integrations: payment gateways, ERP, shipping services, and content management systems. Architecture patterns vary. A monolithic platform combines all functions in one codebase, which can be simple to start but harder to scale. Microservices split functions into small, focused services. Headless commerce separates the frontend from the backend, connected through APIs. API-first design helps teams reuse services across websites, apps, and marketplaces. ...