Extensibility is vital in today’s fast-changing business world. Ecommerce companies need solutions that can keep pace with their expansion plans and changing customer expectations without re-engineering key business systems and processes.
Whether you are in the business to business (B2B) market, retail (B2C), sell directly to your consumers (D2C), or you’re planning to create an online marketplace, you must deliver buying experiences that keep up with the latest trends and expectations.
However, many organizations are being held back by long development times, code restrictions, and lengthy testing programs before they can go live with updates and innovations.
What is extensibility?
Ecommerce relies on innovation to meet and exceed customer expectations. Extensibility allows you to keep pace and move ahead of your competitors through continuous improvement. As your business grows, you will face new challenges and expectations that will add to complexity, including modern security requirements, omnichannel sales, and end to end integration of your business processes.
With an extensible platform, you can make changes to your ecommerce site quickly and efficiently, independently of other business systems and processes. The alternative is to plan and implement one major update after another, which will be time-consuming and expensive.
Integrated commerce with VTEX
The VTEX ecommerce platform provides a single solution for integrated commerce, marketplaces and order management. It’s a software as a service (SaaS) platform that provides everything you’ll need from templates to headless customization. It can help you to speed up your time to market and enhance your sales channels with continuous enhancements.
What is VTEX IO?
IO is VTEX’s low-code development platform. It makes innovation fast and easy because you can focus on your code rather than managing your business infrastructure. It is a flexible alternative to more traditional monolithic ecommerce approaches. Instead, it provides a network of application programming interfaces (APIs) and easy-to-use features in the cloud that make VTEX a truly extensible platform. It’s key features include:
Scalability – your developers can focus on creating exceptional customer experiences because VTEX IO handles the infrastructure for you. You can run scalable applications in the cloud that can be immediately synchronized with the VTEX platform. Additional installation stages won’t be needed before deployment.
Easy Interface – a text-based Command Line Interface (CLI) makes it easy to run programs, manage files and interact with other systems – all you need is a keyboard. Every step in your development process uses the VTEX IO CLI. As soon as you have access to your VTEX account you can link local files to IO, update and release new apps and deprecate old ones.
Multiple Workspaces – your developers will want to be sure any code they deploy won’t disrupt your users’ experiences. At the same time, you will want to know that any changes you make will actually improve your business performance. Workspaces are multiple versions of your code that allow you to make and test modifications in a safe environment that’s very similar to your live site. You can even compare changes using A/B testing.
Easy Authentication – you will want to be confident that anyone accessing your VTEX account to develop new applications has permission. The VTEX IO user permission check process makes authentication straightforward. When complete, your users can link apps, navigate through your workspaces, and test code changes.
Flexibility – VTEX IO can be used to develop many different kinds of apps for your storefront, admin, back-end processes and mobile devices, as well as bespoke React components.
VTEX IO Store Framework – there’s also a low-code implementation framework to develop your storefront structure using pieces of code called store blocks. These are React components that can dramatically speed up construction of your ecommerce site. This helps your developers to work efficiently and allows other team members to modify block properties using the Site Editor admin panel without using any code.
Thriving Community – when things work well it doesn’t take long for the word to spread, which is why there’s a growing community of users. The VTEX Community provides a forum where developers can ask questions, solve problems, and share ideas. There’s also a VTEX YouTube channel for developers with weekly announcements, Q&A sessions and demonstrations.
Evolution Focussed – using VTEX IO and the Store Framework your site can evolve organically. With the community constantly adding innovative new store blocks, solving problems and building apps you will have access to a constantly growing range of options and ideas.
Work with trusted VTEX partners
Williams Commerce is a VTEX commerce partner, so we can help you innovate to meet and exceed your customers’ needs and expectations.
