I recently wrote about the demise of Magento and alluded to a new approach to eCommerce that we are adopting at C3. Whilst the process of pivoting will take time, I can grant you a peek behind the curtain and reveal what's got us so excited and why. But first, I feel it's important to look at what's come before: the good, the bad, and... the rest.

I built my first Magento website in 2008, shortly after the platform’s inaugural release. It was not an easy process. There was no documentation or community to lean on: no Stack Overflow posts, no examples to follow, and nobody to ask how to do it right. In the following years, a burgeoning community was born, launching the platform into the stratosphere. The platform's popularity soared, and, for a time, its exponential rise was unstoppable. For merchants of all sizes, Magento was the go-to platform of choice; it was powerful, flexible, and packed with features.

Then came Magento 2.0 - a complete rewrite from the ground up. Aiming to extend and improve upon the first iteration dramatically, it had big aspirations and even bigger boots to fill. It was a travesty - bug-ridden, extremely complex, and so slooooow. Good grief, it was slow. While later versions eventually fixed most of the major issues, Magento 2 remained orders of magnitude more difficult to work with than its predecessor. As a result, development costs skyrocketed. While creating a well-performing Magento 1 site was relatively easy for most, holding a degree in Computer Science was a boon when working with the second coming and a must for getting the best out of it. However, despite its shortcomings and high barrier to entry, its broad feature set, unlimited potential for customisation, and the availability of a free, open-source version meant that it remained highly popular, if somewhat controversially so.

It helped that there were no real contenders. Shopify was still only servicing the DIY'ers and startups, and the other non-SaaS offerings were woefully lacking in features and abilities compared to the new orange powerhouse. So prolific was the brand that I built a business around it. My agency's website was all the marketing we needed - plus a negligible spend on PPC. The number of people searching for the term "Magento" remained consistent for years and supplied us with a steady stream of enquiries... oh, the golden years!

So what happened? Well, Magento couldn't monopolise forever. Its popularity eventually nosedived as new contenders in the digital commerce space emerged. Shopify levelled up with capabilities that made it relevant to more than just the sole trader; BigCommerce came on the scene with a compelling offering, sparking further competition, and others were to follow. At the same time, Magento became stale. I mentioned that it was over-engineered; this made it difficult and expensive to work with - not least for Magento themselves. For many years, it was stuck on an ageing tech stack, and to this day, its front end is based on technologies from over five years ago - a lifetime in the tech world. While other platforms were innovating rapidly, Magento continued to use the same old, tired approaches.

As a developer, I had a love-hate relationship with the platform, as did many others. There's no doubt there is genius in the codebase, but it failed spectacularly regarding its ease of use. Soon after the 2.0 release, it became known as the “career killer” in some developer circles. I know of cases where people were signed off work due to the stress of working with this complex beast - some never to return.

And yet Magento's inertia was such that agencies like mine carried on producing solutions. And there are some great examples out there (and I'm not only talking about those in the C3 portfolio!). For skilled and experienced agencies and individuals, crafting performant solutions that deliver considerable value remains possible; it's just not as easy as it should be.

Fast forward to 2024. The global economy is in the toilet, and businesses around the globe are looking to cut costs or, at the very least, have ever more focus on their spending. The rising cost of ownership for a Magento 2 site and the platform's inability to keep up with the competition has meant that interest in it has nosedived. Compounded by Adobe focusing all of its efforts on big enterprises, Magento merchants and agencies alike are left wondering what to do now - what's life like post-Magento? Some agencies have attached their cart to the Shopify horse, others to BigCommerce, or other similarly well-performing, monolithic, usually SaaS alternatives. But the question I have been obsessing over is: do they deliver enough? Is there an alternative to going all-in on another platform and its specific ecosystem? What happens if they suffer a fate similar to Magento’s? Surely, there’s a way to remove this dependency on the monolithic platform and better future-proof the merchant's solution? Can this be done whilst remaining highly competitive and ultimately relevant?

Yes. The answer - or at least the best answer in my not-so-humble opinion (and I'm not alone) - is Composable Commerce. And no, it's not another platform to throw your lot in with. It's a paradigm shift, an approach that puts the merchant in control by reducing dependencies on any one platform or provider. It offers choice, best-in-class services and experiences, and a strategy which protects the investment. It breaks the 3 to 5-year reboot cycle and provides the agility to make changes continually. Hallelujah, we have been saved!

Some merchants on Magento would do very well on Shopify, BigCommerce, SAP Commerce Cloud, Salesforce, or Shopware. But for those who embrace a new way of thinking, there is much more to gain from looking beyond these confines. A composable approach will often include one of these platforms but will not be limited by it and will not be wholly dependent on it. Instead, it will utilise its strengths and embrace the ecosystem of specialist services to significantly level up in critical areas.

This is not a wholly new concept. Many websites that use a monolithic application such as Magento, already use third-party services. Search is an excellent example of where Magento falls short. Well-established and highly regarded specialist search providers such as Klevu can be integrated, providing plugins for the major platforms. Composable Commerce takes this further, often by introducing a decoupled, or "headless", front-end; that is to say, one that exists as an entirely separate component. Imagine a world where you could swap out your eCommerce "backend" - or platform - but retain your front-end experience. Equally, imagine gaining the ability to swap out your search, customer personalisation, or rewards system without having to significantly reengineer the solution. If there's one thing we've learned over the last few tumultuous years, it's that the brands that adapt quickly are the ones that thrive.

At C3, our mission is to embrace this brave new world and to bring the immense value of Composable to our customers. We believe the future is bright, but it is not orange; think more of a technicolour Dreamcoat.

Since Adobe purchased Magento there has been growing uncertainty in regard to its future. Many merchants have been left wondering about the longevity of their Magento solution, whether or not they should be considering a move, and whether there is much more to see from their investment. With this article I hope to provide some clarity on the current situation as I see it, and to help answer these questions. This article gives an account of the demise of the Adobe Solutions Partner Programme, as well as the Magento platform itself. This is from my standpoint as the leader of the digital commerce agency, C3, with over 15 years of experience working with Magento, and several years as an Adobe Commerce Solutions Partner.

In the early days following the acquisition not much changed; the product remained much the same, as did the people and support provided to partners and merchants. Then, with an escalating, and quite alarming rapidity, things began to change, and not for the better. As an Adobe  Solutions Partner, we (C3) saw a swift decline in Adobe’s engagement with us. First, we lost our partner manager; a huge, and unprecedented blow. Gone was our key contact within the Adobe organisation, with no prior warning. We no longer knew who to approach for any of our support needs - quite an unconscionable and unexpected change from such a strategic partner.  We were marginally placated being assigned a dedicated sales manager. They didn’t last long, as they were “reassigned” within a few months, leaving us with just an “admin team” for any administrative based queries. We were left completely in the dark as to the future of the partnership programme, as well as the products themselves. What we were sure of, was that this was not a positive sign for us, or for our customers.

The rhetoric coming from Adobe in the last year or so has been surrounding how well placed Adobe Commerce is to support large enterprise. At this point it became painfully obvious that Adobe were shifting their focus away from SMEs, to focus on big brand names - think the Best Buys of this world. Our customers largely fall into the SME category, and therefore we became concerned about the future of their solutions on the now-dubbed Adobe Commerce platform - previously Magento Enterprise. The shift to large enterprise fits with Adobe’s extended product range, which includes their Adobe Experience Manager, which comes with a hefty 6 figure annual licence fee. In an attempt to find out more about the future of Adobe Commerce, I attended various Adobe partner webinars which rarely, if ever, mentioned Commerce. The platform is now a smaller part of a much larger whole; and whilst I’m sure it’s a key feature in Adobe’s strategy, it is no longer a primary focus; more of an ancillary product to feed into and support Adobe’s cash cow i.e AEM/AEP.

So what does this mean for those merchants with an Adobe Commerce licence? For now, not much, as Adobe continues to support and develop the product. Looking further on, however, Adobe has made it abundantly clear that they are not interested in SMEs. I predict that in the worst case they will make the licence fee for Commerce prohibitive, either directly by upping the fee considerably, or indirectly by absorbing it into another product such as AEP, and forcing merchants to pay for a much larger licence. The best case is that they continue to allow SMEs to use the platform, maybe for a limited time, but introduce little in the way of relevant features or advancements. The most recent evidence to support this claim, is the downgrading of a huge swathe of Adobe Solutions Partners. With no warning and zero communication, partners noticed (by looking at the public Adobe SPP directory) that their partnership tier had reduced, in some cases going from Gold to Bronze, losing the associated benefits. Whilst this did not happen to us, as we remained on the Bronze tier, I know of many who were up in arms about this sweeping change. It is evident that Adobe has selected a few larger partner agencies to work with on their larger enterprise drive; all others have been left out in the cold.

Given all of this I strongly advise caution to those on the platform considering a lengthy licence renewal. Adobe evidently doesn’t care about you, or the partners that support you. No doubt this attitude will be reflected in the future direction of the platform.

Ok, but how about Magento Open Source? There are many merchants using this free version of the platform. Historically the free and paid editions - Commerce and Open Source, previously Magento Community and Enterprise respectively - have been very similar in terms of feature-set and functionality. In recent times they have started to diverge more significantly, with Adobe releasing new Commerce-only features such as targeted micro-services. Open Source, however, has been left with very little in the way of notable advancements. Prior to the Adobe acquisition, Magento always used to say that the Community Edition was their biggest competitor. However, they knew that the huge global community that it fostered was immeasurably valuable and was pivotal to their growth and success. It contributed in no small way to its widespread global adoption, and being recognised as the leading open source eCommerce platform. It drove innovation in a way a closed-source product never could.

The new direction Adobe is taking Commerce has seen a significant decline in engagement with the community. Adobe has killed off the Magento brand and, as a result, the ecosystem and community that supports it has suffered hugely from attrition. For merchants, this means fewer agencies and developers working with the platform, and a lack of innovation with the product itself.

It is clear that Magento’s days are numbered. For now, it is being maintained from a security standpoint, but I do not expect any further significant advancements. Furthermore, due to a lack of investment, Magento has already become stale. For example, the front-end is, and always has been, slow. Developers have had to work incredibly hard to overcome this limitation, which has become an increasing focus given how much emphasis Google places on speed when working out rankings. That said, its life has been somewhat extended by the community, who have responded to this major shortcoming. The folks over at Hyvä have engineered a new front-end from the ground up - it’s modern, and it’s fast - and there is no doubt that it has given Magento a new lease of life. The work carried out by Hyvä is to be applauded, as it has helped merchants stay competitive and relevant in the face of an increasingly aging platform. There is also Mage-OS - a “fork”, or copy, of Magento Open Source, created and developed by prominent members of the community who have also seen which way the wind is blowing. However, it’s in its infancy, and it is yet to be seen if it will gain any traction. My personal opinion is that these endeavours to prop-up and sustain the platform are sticky-plasters on a wound that is unlikely to heal. Hyvä especially is a valuable initiative; it is much needed life support for a dying platform, but it has no long-term future, and it will ultimately be turned off. It's time to let go, and move on.

So this leaves the question: what’s next? If you’re a merchant with Magento at the heart of your Digital Commerce offering, what should you do? This is a question that we at C3 have spent a lot of time and energy answering. The future success of our business, and those of our customers, depends on finding the right solution. A solution that has the hallmarks of what Magento used to be: powerful, flexible, customisable, with support from a global network of solutions providers and developers. The C3 team has spent months researching the increasing number of available eCommerce platforms, services, and technologies. Utilising our 15+ years of architecting, designing, optimising and maintaining eCommerce solutions, we have scrutinised every area and every option. As a result of our efforts, I am excited to announce that we have a strong, sustainable, and all around better solution to support our merchants, and indeed most SMEs, now and far into the future.

At the beginning of the year we embarked upon an internal project to bring this solution to life, and I am pleased to report that we have made excellent progress. So much so that we are planning on starting a customer project using this new approach in the coming months. The new approach brings agility, flexibility, and the benefit of bleeding-edge technology, to allow production of best-of-breed solutions. And all of this within reach of most mid-market merchants. Furthermore, as we acknowledge that Magento merchants have invested significantly in their current Digital Commerce stack, we have created a way to transition away from the Magento monolith without throwing it all out. 

As to the details, that's enough from me today, so ensure you subscribe below to avoid missing out on my follow-up, where I shall reveal all!