3 MACH architecture myths debunked

But first thing’s first, just what is a MACH eCommerce architecture?

Our partners over at commercetools know a thing or two about this area of eCommerce, seeing as they coined the term! There’s a handy definition of the concept in their ‘Making the Switch to MACH’ white paper.

“MACH stands for microservices-based, API-first, cloud-native and headless. A MACH architecture gives you a flexible framework to build features and functions that meet your exact business needs. It’s highly scalable and customizable. Compared to today’s typical enterprise suite—once considered the “safe” choice but now unable to keep up with the increasing business demands of a modern, connected world—commerce built with a MACH architecture is more agile, more nimble and always up to date,” the paper reads.

Like anything that’s new to the market and has a touch of esotericism about it though, MACH architecture is easily misunderstood, and more than a few myths surround it. Let’s dive into three of the biggest misconceptions around MACH and see what we can do to correct the record.

Myth 1 – MACH is prohibitively expensive

In business, everything ultimately comes back to the bottom line, which is perhaps why the myth that switching to a MACH architecture is prohibitively expensive is floating out there in the ether. On an intuitive level, it’s easy to buy into this one. After all, MACH sure sounds like it has more bells and whistles than a legacy commerce platform, so logically it should be more expensive, right?

The truth, as always, is a little more complicated than that, and to dive into this grey area, it’s helpful to take a closer look at some of MACH’s components.

We’ll start with the final letter of that acronym and take a look at headless, which according to commercetools means:

“Headless commerce decouples the frontend (what users see and engage with, AKA the “head”) of an eCommerce platform from the backend (where the product information, customer details, and other data is stored).”

Headless, as a relatively new and trendy technology, is often associated with higher costs, and while the initial set-up will require a bit of an outlay, in the long run going headless will likely prove to be a cost saver.

“Many people think that by going headless it will be expensive, as it means buying different pieces of software and integrating everything together,” Joshua Emblin, APAC Territory Director at commercetools, told Power Retail. “On the contrary, going headless means selecting best-of-breed technology; the best software piece that helps you to reduce tech debt, reduce headcount and free up resources.”

One way to think of the difference between monolithic and headless platforms is to imagine preparing a dinner party and putting all your effort into the starter and neglecting the main course and dessert together at the last minute. Sure, your dinner party will start off well, but you’ll run into problems down the road. Or you could spend more prep time ensuring you have everything in place to make the main and dessert sumptuous too. The latter approach is in some ways analogous to headless commerce, where the early investment in better technology will give you the ability to be flexible down the road.

Similarly, the cloud-native part of the MACH equation has long-term savings, even if the initial switch or set-up costs are something to be factored in. Some research has found that 30% of data center capacity is idle at any given time, but this wastage is less of an issue when you’re cloud-native due to features like metered billing and pay-per-use models.

Myth 2 – MACH never works for small businesses

This is a debunking that comes with a caveat. It is true that organizations need a certain level of technological maturity to transition to a MACH architecture with success and the out of the box monolithic approach can work for lots of SMEs, as we discussed on our podcast. However, the idea that MACH is never the right approach for a business on a smaller scale is a myth worth debunking.

For a start, not all small businesses plan to stay small businesses. In fact, we’d venture to say most want to scale up at some point, and this is where investing in a MACH architecture from early on can have benefits. Whereas a monolithic approach will likely cap scale at a certain point, using MACH elements like headless, as well as being API-first, gives a business the flexibility to scale.

As Joshua Emblin told Power Retail:

“Going headless helps small retailers to compete with big businesses. It doesn’t matter how big or small your company is or how many offices you have, modern commerce makes you a global brand. Even if your footprint is small, launching a promotion, stocking up for a holiday or finding that your product is suddenly in high demand, should never cause panic within your company.”

Retailers in Australia and abroad have successfully adopted the MACH approach, including Foodl, Kmart, and many others

Being cloud-native is another part of MACH architecture that businesses can take advantage of no matter their scale. For example, better network performance has been cited by businesses as the best reason to migrate to the cloud and we all know how important it is for businesses of all sizes to have fast website loading times. Remember, one in two visitors will leave a website if it takes more than six seconds to load!

It would be irresponsible not to jump back to our caveat at this point for the reminder that for many small businesses, MACH is probably not the best approach. As Paul Williams, Director – Solutions Engineering, APAC at commercetools, put it on our podcast on headless commerce:

“The headless or composable approach is really for mature organizations, the ones who have outgrown those traditional platforms and it’s part of their vision to grow and go beyond that. Equally, there are so many businesses that don’t need that scale.”

Again though, this doesn’t mean scale is always a requirement for a MACH architecture. If your small business has achieved a level of technological maturity and you can’t achieve what you want to with a traditional eCommerce architecture, MACH may be the way forward, especially if you think you’ll be able to scale fast.

Myth 3 – Switching to MACH architecture is incredibly complex

Nobody likes change, but that doesn’t mean it’s always something to be avoided, even if the change required is going to be difficult. Is switching to a MACH architecture a walk in the park? No, as mentioned above a certain level of technological maturity is required to make it work for your business. But that doesn’t mean that a pivot to MACH is so complex that it should be daunting, it’s just something that requires a little bit of planning.

The alternative of staying with a traditional eCommerce architecture doesn’t necessarily remove the complexity factor either. As business requirements change and a company needs to sell online in different ways (for example, social commerce integrations) altering a traditional architecture becomes more and more difficult. It’s like trying to fix a leaky boat by sticking bits of wood into holes; eventually, you’re going to start taking on water.

The commercetools MACH white paper demonstrates the pitfalls that can come with using a legacy architecture when you want to keep up with the competition:

“Some companies try the band-aid approach, bolting add-ons to existing systems, hoping they can still keep up with fast-changing marketplaces. The reality is that approach is not only inefficient, it’s also unsustainable and ignores the latest methodologies and best development practices.”

So while moving to a MACH architecture may not be the simplest task your development team will ever face, getting the flexibility benefits of MACH is worth it, especially if your alternative is battling with legacy architecture.

Joshua Emblin told Inside Retail about the realities of making such a transition: 

“The initial transition moving your business from legacy to modern commerce is going to take some work. However, this investment pays off quickly in the short term and delivers extremely high value over the long term. The transition is also smooth – getting your business over to modern commerce can be a painless, downtime-free process with good planning.”

Another salient point Joshua rightly brought up is that this transition doesn’t have to happen overnight and can be carried out piecemeal, allowing your business to hit the ground running:

“Thanks to the flexibility of composable commerce, it’s possible to get set up with a minimum viable product (MVP) to get up and running quickly, and to form a first base for kicking off the platform for use in the rest of your business.”

Next steps

Hopefully with some myths debunked you now have a better understanding of what a MACH architecture can and can’t do for your business.

Ready to learn more? Speak to one of our eCommerce experts today.