commercetools provides you with a robust base to deliver exceptional commerce experiences. To complete your solution, additional components are needed. We'll cover the main components you might need and discuss common setups. These help you decide on a source of truth for each data type.
Customer
The customer master record varies more across organizations than any other data type. This is because a customer profile can be created in several ways. If an organization has a customer data platform (CDP), that is typically where customer records are mastered. Without a CDP, the most common approach is to make commercetools the source of truth, since most accounts are created there. Some organizations store the customer master record in an order management system (OMS) or enterprise resource planning (ERP) system instead. This is more common in organizations without a unified commerce solution across markets, brands, or channels.
If a customer record is mastered in another system, you still need a Customer in commercetools. This is required for customer-related permissions, cart and order assignment, and personalized promotions.
Upon creation, a Customer requires only an email address as a unique identifier, and a Business Unit requires a name, type, and key. However, we recommend storing the physical addresses of Customers and Business Units as they determine shipping costs and taxes.
externalId field of the Customer resource. To replicate data with no equivalent field, store it in Custom Fields.Order
Order management is essential for commerce applications. commercetools focuses on capturing orders, which are then typically passed on to other systems, such as OMS or ERP for further handling.
The order master record generally lives in a downstream system from commercetools. This can either be an OMS or an ERP system. These systems are designed to be a centralized system for orders coming from all channels and provide robust reporting mechanisms.
- Create Orders: assign Line Items and Customer information to create Orders.
- Update/edit Orders: edit Order details if a customer requests a change.
- Order status workflow: create a custom Order workflow.
- Fulfill Orders or change status: handle Order fulfillment and manage custom Order statuses.
Inventory
Inventory generally comes from the system that has the order master record. This is because orders directly influence inventory, and a tight relationship must exist between them.
To avoid the overselling of items, we recommend establishing threshold levels for inventory tracked with commercetools. This allows the inventory to become depleted in commercetools without making a call to the inventory master for each order. Once the threshold is reached, commercetools makes a real-time call to the inventory master to confirm stock availability before the order is created.
For organizations where commercetools is the source of truth for orders, commercetools can also be the source of truth for inventory.
Tracking inventory in commercetools is optional. For instance, manufacturing companies might want to sell the goods they produce without tracking any inventory in commercetools.
Product Catalog
Pricing
The system for mastering product catalog data, such as a PIM, is also typically used as the source of truth for pricing. This includes MSRP, list, and base prices.
In a B2B context, customer-specific prices are more likely to be defined in the CDP. These prices are then consolidated in commercetools for use on the storefront. For organizations using a configure price quote (CPQ) system, the CPQ also receives product and price data for the quotation flow. Organizations without a CPQ can run the quotation flow natively in commercetools.
Promotions
Promotions are most commonly mastered in commercetools. Composable Commerce provides a sophisticated promotion engine that uses customer, catalog, and order information to verify eligibility and apply discounts.
Tax
For businesses operating in the United States or Canada, adhering to complex tax regulations is essential. To ensure compliance, we recommend integrating a tax calculation service.
In a B2B context, you can configure commercetools to handle net prices, with taxes calculated automatically. This allows B2B companies to purchase and sell based on net prices, while still maintaining the tax information needed for certain processes or services.
Payment
Search
Email
For sending out order confirmations and other customer communication, you can complete your solution with an external email service.