Innovation is the driving force behind retail success – but too often, eCommerce and tech teams find themselves stuck in daily operations instead of focusing on growth and new customer experiences. While digital commerce is evolving at lightning speed, many are bogged down by inefficient workflows, outdated systems, and time-consuming processes that leave little room for innovation.
Instead of carving out new revenue streams or optimizing customer experiences, eCommerce teams spend too much time managing fragmented systems, troubleshooting inefficiencies, and navigating approval roadblocks. As complexity grows, so do delays, making it harder to move quickly, adapt to market changes, and stay ahead of the competition. So, what’s getting in their way?
Pain #1: A Bloated Tech Stack Overcomplicates Daily Operations
Enterprise retailers often rely on too many disconnected tools for order management, inventory tracking, customer data, and personalization. Monolithic and hypercomposable platforms can both have this issue, despite being at opposite ends of the spectrum.
Monolithics, often built through acquisitions, lack a cohesive interface. They’re essentially multiple platforms stitched together and disguised as a single unit that’s nevertheless inflexible.
Hypercomposable tech stacks lack the core features that unify a platform, meaning creating a seamless user experience requires extensive IT maintenance which many teams can’t support.
Instead of streamlining operations, these fragmented systems create unnecessary complexity, forcing teams to spend hours switching between platforms, troubleshooting integrations, and managing redundant workflows.
An overloaded tech stack slows teams down rather than improving efficiency. Each new tool requires onboarding, maintenance, and integration, adding to their workload. Without a streamlined infrastructure, innovation takes a backseat as teams struggle to keep daily operations running.
A unified, composable commerce setup can help break this cycle. It eliminates redundancies and simplifies workflows. A more flexible system reduces manual tasks, automates processes, and frees up time for growth and innovation.
Pain #2: Too Much Time Spent on System Maintenance
Keeping an eCommerce platform running smoothly requires continuous updates, bug fixes, and security patches. These maintenance tasks can consume a disproportionate amount of time if your applications are not integrated seamlessly, leaving teams with little bandwidth for innovation. Instead of developing new customer experiences or testing emerging technologies, your teams are stuck resolving technical issues and ensuring system stability.
Common time drains include:
- Frequent software updates that require testing and deployment.
- Ongoing security patches to protect against cyber threats.
- Manual troubleshooting when integrations between tools fail.
- Performance optimizations to ensure a seamless shopping experience.
A major challenge is that many enterprise retailers still operate on rigid systems that require heavy IT involvement – even for minor adjustments. This slows down response times and forces teams to prioritize maintenance over strategic initiatives.
To free up time, retailers are shifting to cloud-based and composable commerce platforms that automate updates, streamline security, and minimize downtime. By reducing the manual workload, eCommerce teams can focus on innovation rather than firefighting technical issues.
Pain #3: Fractured Data Management Makes Decision-Making Slow
Making data-driven decisions is essential for eCommerce success, but many teams lack real-time insights and operate within slow, siloed processes. Instead of acting quickly, they spend too much time gathering, interpreting, and aligning data across departments, which delays innovation. Fragmented data sources make it difficult to establish a single source of truth, while manual reporting processes slow down decision-making. Lengthy approval chains further complicate progress, as multiple stakeholders need to sign off on even minor changes.
Without automated analytics and AI-driven insights, teams are forced to compile reports manually, leaving little time for strategy and execution. Rigid organizational structures make it even harder to pivot quickly in response to shifting market conditions. Retailers that implement real-time data dashboards, AI-powered analytics, and automated reporting can eliminate bottlenecks, speed up decision-making, and give teams the freedom to focus on driving innovation.
Pain #4: Scaling and Experimenting Take Too Long
Expanding into new markets, sales channels, and business models is key to growth, but many eCommerce teams lack the flexibility to scale quickly. Instead of testing new revenue streams, they spend too much time adjusting outdated systems, reconfiguring integrations, and working around technical limitations.
Legacy systems often require extensive customization, making every expansion a slow, resource-heavy process. Manual testing and deployment further delay time to market, making it harder to respond to shifting consumer trends. Without sandbox environments for controlled experimentation, retailers struggle to test new features without disrupting existing operations.
Retail innovation leaders are turning to modular, API-driven commerce platforms that enable faster testing, iteration, and scaling. A flexible infrastructure reduces technical bottlenecks, allowing teams to focus less on system constraints – and more on innovation.
Free Up Time, Unlock Innovation
eCommerce teams can’t afford to be stuck in manual processes, outdated systems, and slow decision-making. Innovation isn’t just a competitive advantage –it’s a necessity.
By streamlining systems, automating maintenance, and enabling faster decisions, retailers can free up valuable time to experiment, scale, stay ahead of changing consumer expectations – and your competition. The key to unlocking innovation is a flexible, future-ready commerce infrastructure that empowers teams to move faster and smarter.
SCAYLE Commerce Engine is uniquely placed to take away the pain enterprise retailers face. Learn more about how they do it in their latest video. But be warned: Their humor is as out of the box as their features.