Architecture

How the pieces fit and which properties still hold after a replatform on either side of the boundary.

  • Build versus buy for the product catalogue

    Build versus buy for the product catalogue

    Building the product catalogue is usually the wrong call and building the media layer is almost always the wrong call, for different reasons. The split matters, because most teams get the decision right on one half and wrong on the other.

    read more

  • Single source of truth, applied to product data

    Single source of truth, applied to product data

    Everyone agrees on single source of truth in the abstract and nobody agrees on it per field. The phrase only becomes useful when it is written down as a list of fields with one owner each, and a rule about what everyone else is allowed to hold.

    read more

  • Media in a headless commerce stack

    Media in a headless commerce stack

    Going headless solves the coupling between your data and your front end, and it quietly creates a new problem: every front end now has to decide, on its own, what shape an image should be. Here is where that decision belongs.

    read more

  • DAM, PIM, CMS and ERP: the boundary map

    DAM, PIM, CMS and ERP: the boundary map

    Four systems, overlapping feature lists, and one question that settles nearly every argument between them. Here is the field-level map, the two boundaries that are genuinely contested, and how many of the four you actually need.

    read more

  • Wiring a DAM to a PIM without a nightly sync job

    Wiring a DAM to a PIM without a nightly sync job

    The default integration between an asset system and a product system is a scheduled export that copies files and metadata from one into the other. It is also the reason your images are out of date. Here is the reference-based alternative.

    read more