Planning the right e-commerce architecture for your business can be a complex process, but it is an important one to ensure that your online store is able to meet the needs of your customers and your business. Stakeholder management and requirements gathering are an important part, as described in my Free E-Commerce Projectplan Template.
A good e-commerce architecture should include several key technical systems to support the smooth and efficient operation of the website. Some of the key systems that may be included in an e-commerce architecture are:
- A web server to host the website and serve web pages to users
- A content management system (CMS) to manage and organize the content of the website
- A payment gateway to process online payments
- An inventory management system to track and manage the inventory of products
- A shipping and fulfillment system to manage the delivery of orders to customers
- A customer relationship management (CRM) system to manage customer interactions and support
Integrations
In addition to these technical systems, a good e-commerce architecture may also require various integrations with external systems. For example, the website may need to integrate with the external payment processors, shipping carriers, and other third-party services. It may also need to integrate with the company’s existing business systems, such as its accounting or enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. These integrations are essential for ensuring that the website can operate smoothly and efficiently, and provide a seamless customer experience. Be sure to also read my article on Writing a testplan and have these planned in your Activities in your Project Management Tooling like Jira, Notion or Excel.
