SFCC Composable Storefront

Yes. 64labs alone has built 12 sites now for major e-commerce brands. It works well. It's fast. We've built out NextJS sites too. They work. They are fast.

The question really is whether the partners and teams trying to implement composable are waiting for Salesforce to solve every use case for them before they feel comfortable building composable sites. It's harder than getting some certifications and throwing the work over the wall to a disciplined but unimaginative offshore team.

Composable will always set challenges for engineers and functional architects. Salesforce is a great platform because it's so flexible. But that comes at the price of complexity and you have to know what you are doing to engineer composable solutions on Salesforce.

No. There is no logical reason to do a hybrid launch of composable storefront. It is not technically easier - in fact it is harder and more complex than a full composable build particularly for larger customers. If you are multi-realm, multi-country, don't even think about hybrid.

In ROI terms it seems logical - this is where the customers are in the upper funnel, right. But in reality customers will switch from PWA to SiteGen multiple times on a journey to purchase and every time they do you are reloading a page, bridging a session and giving a customer a moment to wonder if they really want to keep going.

And even if that all works, you have to find the energy to finish the job and do Checkout within a year or so. Don't do it!

Yes. And no. 

Yes post-launch. No during the implementation phase.

If you have multiple advanced-level React developers with years of experience in composable builds then your team could be a capable partner to 64labs in the critical phases of the project. But (statistically) you probably don't. So normally we engage your lead developer or architect for the first 12 weeks of a project. They get to see everything we do. But that guy is learning more than contributing. Their job is going to be to help us train the rest of the gang in the final “Build to Launch” phase of the project.

If the bulk of your team are full-stack SFCC developers who have played around with React and don't really know what they don't know, you should be identifying those who will in future focus on the front-end and those who will focus on the back-end. With some training from 64labs, and participation in the latter stages of the project, your best full-stack SFCC guys can handle steady-state on your new composable build. And frankly the back-end guys will be doing pretty much what they have always done but with a realistic opportunity to find time to pay off a ton of technical debt.

Large enough to deliver as fast as humanly possible and small enough to keep people from slowing each other down.

Our development team typically consists of a Technical Architect, 2-3 Front-end developers, 1 SFCC Full Stack Developer and 2 QA engineers supported by Business Analyst, Project Manager, and Designer.

However, the team structure may change depending on the project phase -- we're not charging clients for idle time. For example, you don't need as many people on Sprint Ø or Launch phase, so we tailor the team composition depending on what the project needs more in any given moment.

We start even before the project kicks off.

First of all, the base all 64labs projects start from — our Composable Accelerator — is end-to-end tested on multiple levels, and has several quality control layers built in: from linters, and PR-level testing though shift-left practices, automated testing on pre-merge, and then manual and automated UI and Integration testing suites on staging environments.

As the development advances, we are adding more levels of testing including all custom features and integrations, as well as dataLayer, SEO, and Accessibility testing.

Second, every 64labs team has multiple builds under their belt. Everyone on your project has seen the challenges you will face and dealt with (most of) them.

Third, we bring soft skills too. From the management of meetings and sprints, to the checkins with internal stakeholders, 64labs takes responsibility for getting the information and support the project needs. If we make mistakes we solve them, we don;t write up change orders. If we think we can help your team succeed we will do it, never mind what the SOW says is our role and yours.

You don’t just get production-ready code -- performance-optimized, covered with automated testing, and supported by a scalable design system your team can own - you get a live storefront, launched by a team with deep knowledge of Salesforce’s Managed Runtime infrastructure and committed to the commercial success of the project. 64labs is known as a launch company, which means we stay with you through go-live. Whether it’s a “big bang” release or a phased traffic-split cutover, we ensure your composable storefront isn’t just built, it’s successfully launched and delivering value from day one.

Moving to a composable architecture unlocks several key benefits across performance, flexibility, and scalability:

• Faster Performance – Modern composable storefronts are lighter and more optimized than monolithic setups, resulting in faster load times and smoother customer experiences. The older your Salesforce build, the more benefits you are likely to reap here.The ROI for your project lives here. Better performance = lower bounce = greater conversions = more revenue.
• Agility & Flexibility – You can swap in best-of-breed tools (CMS, search, personalization, etc.) without being tied to a single vendor’s limitations or relying on a cartridge built by someone else five years ago. You get to work with specialist vendors and implement their technology for your specific needs. You also get the IT and Merchant team out of each other’s docket. That frees a lot of time on both sides.
• Omnichannel Readiness – Content and commerce experiences can be delivered consistently across web, mobile, apps, in-store devices, and future channels.
• Marketer Empowerment – A headless CMS gives business users a more intuitive, user-friendly way to create and publish content without relying heavily on developers.
• Future-Proof Foundation – With composable, you can evolve your stack incrementally as new technologies emerge, avoiding disruptive “big bang” replatforms.
  

In short, going composable positions your digital commerce experience for greater speed, adaptability, and long-term resilience.

No, you don’t need to migrate to SFRA before adopting a composable approach. While SFRA provides a more modern foundation compared to SiteGenesis, going composable is not dependent on it. At 64labs, we assess your current SFCC setup and “under-the-hood” architecture to determine the best path forward. In many cases, we can layer a composable storefront on top of your existing environment without requiring a full SFRA upgrade first.

That said, if you’re still on SiteGenesis, we’ll highlight any limitations that could impact speed, flexibility, or long-term maintainability - and advise on what scale of changes you should make to enable the composable roadmap. But this is rarely a barrier to your project.

Usually, no. A Composable storefront decouples the front end, so you can keep SFCC as your system of record and integrate via SCAPI/OCAPI while we modernize the experience layer first.

Our approach

• Start incremental: Stand up the composable storefront and custom SCAPI endpoints if needed; integrate with your existing SFCC services and data.
• Harden what exists: With live experience under your belt, add caching, edge/CDN strategies, and optimize key flows (catalog, cart, checkout) over time.
• Evolve selectively: Revisit backend pieces post-project only where there’s clear ROI - eg, any remaining brittle customizations, performance bottlenecks, gaps in APIs, or where external services (search, CMS, PIM, pricing, personalization) deliver additional value.
• Use a “strangler” pattern: Replace or carve out services one by one without a risky “big bang” rewrite.

When a backend change is worth it

• Critical flows can’t meet performance/SLA targets
• Heavy Business Manager customizations block agility
• Data model or integration debt slows every change
• You’re adopting best-of-breed tools that need cleaner APIs

Bottom line: switch the storefront first, prove value fast, and only rebuild backend components that you can see are holding you back.

We recommend keeping UX/UI changes limited during the composable storefront build. Large redesigns can slow down the process and make it harder to clearly measure the architectural and performance improvements from the shift to composable.

That said, we do encourage making smaller, high-value updates - such as applying best practices or tackling long-standing business requests - that won’t disrupt the build. This approach ensures you get the benefits of composable quickly, while still addressing meaningful UX/UI enhancements. The key here is the ability of a design and project team to put a bargain together that recognizes and tackles urgent needs and quick valuable wins, but accepts that the new technology makes the more prosaic upgrades to a design much simpler post-launch.

Yes. A composable storefront can be rolled out gradually using A/B or phased approaches. Many teams start by exposing a percentage of traffic (for example, 5% or 10%) to the new storefront while the majority of users continue on the legacy SFCC experience. This allows you to monitor performance, validate integrations, and collect user feedback before scaling further.

With this approach, you can:

• Compare performance (speed, conversion, engagement) between legacy and composable experiences.
• Mitigate risk by rolling out incrementally rather than all at once.
• Refine the experience based on real customer behavior before full adoption.

This approach requires CDN based routing that can perform real-time routing decisions.

No. Our accelerator is a starting framework built from best practices and experience across all our past projects. It gives us a fast launch point so we can focus quickly on your customizations and third-party integrations.

The code is entirely yours - you own it outright. There are no monthly or yearly licensing fees, and you can upgrade or extend it at any time to support your roadmap and business needs.

Some teams like to keep us around as experts in the new technology on one of our Momentum offerings. But most of our customers are excited to take the helm of their new stack and the upgrades they might want to make are in their hands. In any event, we are always available to help when asked.

Going headless delivers clear advantages for business and marketing teams:

• Revenue – Through lower bounce, higher engagement, improved conversions and add-to-carts, your composable project can be paid off and returning on your investment within 3 months.
• Faster Campaign Execution – Marketers can create, schedule, and publish content without waiting on development cycles, reducing time-to-market.
• Greater Flexibility – Content is managed once and published everywhere - across web, mobile, apps, and emerging channels—without duplicating effort.
• Improved Personalization – Headless architectures integrate easily with best-of-breed tools for personalization, targeting, and A/B testing, giving teams more control over the customer journey.
• Scalability – As your business grows or channels expand, your content delivery scales without rework or disruption.
• Future-Proofing – You’re no longer locked into a single vendor’s roadmap - marketing can adopt new tools and channels as they emerge.

In short, headless empowers your marketing team with more agility, independence, and consistency - so they can deliver better experiences, faster. And it generates incremental revenue, which in the end is the whole point of everything we do.

SEO remains a top priority during the transition. When we implement a headless storefront, we:

• Retain all existing URL structures so your current rankings and backlinks stay intact.
• Apply up-to-date structured data and schema markup to ensure search engines can index and interpret your site correctly.
• Collaborate closely with your team or SEO agency to align on strategy and make the handoff smooth.

This approach minimizes SEO risk while giving you the long-term performance and flexibility benefits of a composable storefront.

Accuracy of your analytics setup is a core part of our process. During the project we:

• Discover (Sprint Ø) – Document your current analytics structure so we have a clear baseline.
• Pixels & Tracking – Review and update all pixels to the latest versions, ensuring proper configuration
• Collaboration – Work directly with your team or agency on the setup and any needed adjustments.
• Implementation – Develop and integrate the required code, tags, data layer, and pixels as part of the build.
• QA & UAT – Validate the entire implementation in quality assurance and user acceptance testing alongside your team.

This structured approach ensures your analytics remain accurate, reliable, and aligned with your business needs throughout the transition.

Based on our experience, the challenges usually aren’t with the technology itself but with how the transition is managed. The most common issues include:

• Leadership focus – Teams sometimes treat replatforming as an opportunity to redesign or add features. Successful projects keep leadership aligned on the primary goal: launching composable first and building on that foundation.
• Third-party integrations – Dependencies on external vendors can cause delays if they’re not responsive or prepared to support composable setups.
• Parallel requests – Internal teams often request unrelated changes during replatforming, which can create scope creep and slow progress.
• Competing priorities – Large internal projects or dependencies may block the composable initiative if not planned around.
• Skills gap – A lack of engineering resources with React and composable expertise can make execution harder, because it creates unnecessary defensiveness among the team.

At 64labs, we surface these risks early in the Sprint Ø phase so they can be addressed before they become blockers.

We’re not here to replace a successful incumbent. We also know you don’t want to pay your SI to learn composable from scratch or repeat mistakes others have already made. Instead, 64labs’ role is to accelerate their success:

• Early phases – We move quickly and autonomously, implementing our accelerator and handling the initial architectural setup. But the process is transparent and open to your SI to observe and assist.
• Collaboration – We often work side by side with your SI, helping them get up to speed on composable concepts and the hidden complexities of the architecture.
• Knowledge transfer – As the project progresses, we train your SI team, assign them work, and provide peer reviews and pull requests to build confidence.
• Enablement – We aim to train at least one lead FE engineer who can serve as an internal trainer for others going forward.
• Flexibility – Every client relationship is a little different, and we adapt our engagement model to your specific needs.

This approach ensures your SI stays engaged and grows in composable expertise, while you get the speed and confidence of our proven accelerator and experience.

No. Our approach minimizes risk to your production environment. We use your existing backend and extend it only where necessary through custom SCAPI endpoints. These endpoints and supporting code can be rolled out to staging and production safely, without impacting your live site or current workflows.

This means your production environment remains stable, while we introduce the integrations and capabilities needed for a composable storefront.

No, in most cases you don’t need to purchase or set up an additional Realm. We build the composable storefront on top of your existing SFCC backend, extending it where needed through custom SCAPI endpoints. This approach allows new code to be deployed to staging and production environments without disrupting your live site or requiring extra Realm licenses.

If there are unique circumstances that suggest a second Realm would be beneficial (for example, large-scale parallel development or complex regional rollouts), we’ll flag that early in the assessment and advise accordingly.