Sylius: Where business vision meets eCommerce freedom
Ever feel like your eCommerce platform is holding you back? You're not alone. Traditional eCommerce platforms often put restrictions on growth and development. However, there's a solution that changes this dynamic.
Sylius, an open-source modular framework, breaks away from the one-size-fits-all model. Its flexibility lets you build your online store according to your specific needs and vision rather than forcing your business to adapt to platform limitations.
In this article, we'll explore how Sylius's adaptable architecture helps to respond to changing customer needs and stay competitive in the market.
First, let's look at how different business models shape the choice of eCommerce solutions.
Choosing a platform when running several eCommerce stores
Multi-store businesses today operate on multiple online stores, each built on a different technology. Why? Most eCommerce platforms are specialized, and each excels at serving specific business models and market segments.
Take a common scenario: a company has its B2C store on WooCommerce, its B2B operations on OroCommerce, and its marketplace on Mirakl. Each platform serves a purpose:
WooCommerce is a simple and user-friendly solution for B2C and is great for direct consumer sales. OroCommerce is focused on the B2B segment and has features designed for business-to-business relations. Mirakl is the best for marketplace management and Multi-vendor and dropshipping businesses.
While this multi-platform approach allows businesses to meet diverse market demands effectively, the complexity of managing multiple systems introduces significant operational challenges, including:
These complexities not only increase operational costs but also require additional staff to manage and coordinate across platforms. The question then arises: why do businesses continue to choose this path of multiple solutions rather than adopting a single, adaptable platform?
Growing beyond standard eCommerce platforms
As we just mentioned, standard eCommerce platforms shine when they serve businesses with standard needs. SaaS solutions offer ready functionalities for companies operating within traditional retail models that effectively meet their requirements.
However, these platforms' limitations become troublesome as businesses evolve. When companies seek to expand into new business models or require custom functionalities, they often find themselves constrained by the very platforms that initially served them well.
The challenges of modifying SaaS-based eCommerce solutions are extensive and complex. Platform providers often resist or restrict substantial modifications to their core systems, while implementing custom functionality demands significant development resources. When changes are made, they frequently result in technical debt that grows over time. The situation gets even more complicated, as modifications can conflict with the core of the platform, and system updates can break custom code. And most importantly, costs keep adding up with every customization, so it’s getting harder to justify staying with such a platform.
This lack of flexibility often forces growing businesses to leave their SaaS solutions and go looking for more flexible alternatives. Trying to make a platform do something it wasn’t designed for creates a cascade of problems, costs, and diminishing returns.
Let’s see how Sylius is different.
Sylius as the foundation for modern eCommerce businesses 🦢
As an open-source eCommerce platform built on PHP, Symfony Sylius offers unique development flexibility. Its main advantage is the ability to change the code freely at any stage of the project and adapt to changing business requirements. Sylius is a monolith by default, but can be adapted to various architectures, headless, and microservices, where each microservice works independently through API, and you can manage without disrupting the whole store.
The foundation on Symfony gives you tested eCommerce features, so there is no need to develop everything from scratch. Sylius has clean and high-quality code following Symfony's best practices, resulting in a future-proof solution with minimal technical debt.
One of Sylius's biggest strengths is how easily it connects with other business tools. Need to connect your Product Information Management (PIM) system or integrate with your Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software? Sylius handles these integrations smoothly, making it perfect for businesses that want to build a customized eCommerce store that can scale with the business.
Sylius is a foundation for any kind of eCommerce business, like building foundations that support different architectural styles without dictating the design. Whether you’re building a B2B platform or a Multi-vendor Marketplace, Sylius gives you the flexibility other eCommerce solutions lack.
For businesses with multichannel operations, Sylius excels by allowing separate domains for different business models - B2B, B2C, and marketplace can coexist and be managed from the same admin panel through headless architecture.
Last but not least, Sylius gives businesses complete control over their eCommerce projects. For fast-growing businesses and enterprises, Sylius Plus provides additional modules and dedicated support to ensure the store can grow with peace of mind.
Wrapping up
Let’s get to what makes Sylius stand out in the crowd. Unlike traditional platforms that force you to work around their pre-built features, Sylius lets you build your store to match your exact business needs from day one.
Nonetheless, let’s be realistic about any technical project. While Sylius is very flexible, turning an extensively customized B2B platform into a Multi-vendor Marketplace isn’t a matter of flipping a switch. The problem here isn’t Sylius itself, but the complexity of the customizations you’ve built along the way.
That’s why planning is crucial. Whether businesses start from scratch or plan for future expansions, defining the long-term vision early on will ensure the technical foundation supports their growth. The earlier you can anticipate your future needs, the more efficiently you can build a solution that will evolve with your business.