Is Composable Just IKEA for Commerce?

It’s not that people can’t build something original anymore.
It’s that the defaults are good enough that most don’t try.

Maybe I’m wrong.
But lately, it feels like storefronts are starting to blur together.

Slick, fast, usable.
But also strangely… interchangeable.

Platforms like Shopify lowered the barrier. That’s a win.
Buy a theme. Tweak a few styles. Maybe go headless and run your own accelerator.

But even then—you’re still operating within the rails of what the platform allows.
And I get it. The goal is to reduce friction. To help brands launch quickly.

Still, I can’t help wondering:
Did we quietly let “custom” become irrelevant?

When “works out of the box” becomes the main feature…
People stop opening the box.

🪑 The IKEA of Commerce

Composable commerce was supposed to change everything.

Pick your stack. Build what you need. Escape the all-in-one monolith.

And in theory—it does that.

But in practice?

It starts to feel a lot like IKEA.

You’re handed modular parts.
You get a clean diagram.
You follow the instructions.

And what you build does work.
It’s tidy. Affordable. Scalable.

But most people just assemble what’s in the box.
Same bookshelf. Different veneer.

So we’re not really building custom experiences.
We’re assembling sanctioned ones.

Because deviating from the instructions takes time.
Takes budget.
Takes commitment.

And at scale, that’s usually the first thing to get cut.

🧠 The Experience Moved—But Did We Follow It?

So maybe the storefront isn’t the battleground anymore.

Maybe brands are solving for the customer experience somewhere else.

You see it in the tools:

• Customer data platforms
• Behavioral analytics
• Personalization engines
• Real-time segmentation

Instead of crafting a new interface, we’re trying to know the user better.
Show them what they want. Predict the next step.

That’s not a bad instinct.

But it’s a different kind of experience design.

We used to run big workshops to define personas.
Now we just chase behavior and let the system optimize.

Is that still design?
Or is it just decision-tree automation?

Are we curating journeys—or nudging users through invisible funnels?

🧩 Are Sanctioned Solutions… Bad? Not Exactly.

Let me be clear—“sanctioned” doesn’t mean bad.

Interchangeable parts revolutionized the world.
Standardization brought efficiency, scale, and consistency to industries that used to rely on craft alone.

And in commerce, we’re seeing the same thing.

Composable platforms, prebuilt integrations, theme marketplaces—they work.
They make it faster to launch. Easier to maintain.
They help teams focus on what matters most.

But that’s the thing:

If we no longer compete through the build…
Then where do we play?

If everything’s becoming a kit—
If the components are shared—
If the storefront is standardized—

Then the edge has to move.

So where does your difference live now?

🧭 Where Differentiation Lives Today

If the surface looks the same, the edge has to move somewhere else.

Maybe it’s:

• The story that pulls people in before they buy
• The community and care that keeps them after
• The tone, the culture, the rituals around the transaction
• The speed at which the brand learns, adapts, and rebuilds

Maybe the storefront is just scaffolding now.
Not the experience itself—but the container for it.

Because when everything is composable…
The only thing left that’s truly yours is the stuff you choose to do differently.

👁 Closing Reflection

This isn’t a takedown.
Composable platforms are here to stay—and for good reason.

But if every brand is using the same stack, the same search, the same CMS, the same checkout…

Then the question becomes:

If you stripped away the brand colors—would anyone know it’s you?