How to Build the Ultimate Ecommerce Tech Stack in 2025
Are you familiar with the story of David, a young shepherd, and Goliath, the giant?
In a high-stakes single combat, David used the materials he had—five smooth stones and a slingshot—to knock out the sword-wielding warrior.
Moral of the story? The right tools amplify your efforts and yield results.
Need expert help selecting the right tool?
With one-on-one help, we guide you to your top software options. Narrow down your software search & make a confident choice.
In this blog post, we're taking a page out of David's book. You’ll learn how to put together an ecommerce tech stack that can drive your business growth and help you beat the competition.
But First, What is an Ecommerce Tech Stack?
An ecommerce tech stack is the arsenal of tools, apps, and platforms that work together to help run and scale your online store.
This software ecosystem works behind the scenes to optimize your core business processes, including inventory management, payment processing, marketing, sales, and customer service.
It helps you spot operational gaps and growth opportunities, underpinning your success.
Why Your Ecommerce Business Needs the Right Tech Stack
Tech stacks provide digital-first businesses with the infrastructure that transforms online business activities, including data management and customer interactions, into tangible, actionable processes.
That’s its biggest sell.
The following 3 stories will further convince you of its value:
TrueTrac’s massive revenue growth despite the pandemic
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, TrueTrac focused on improving online reach over in-person trade shows. They needed a strong ecommerce presence to keep the sales coming and grow sustainably.
The decision to upgrade their ecommerce tech stack may have started out of necessity, but the results were transformative.
Since implementing the upgraded tech stack, we’ve seen around a 240% growth in revenue.
Our transaction volume increased by 84.5% and overall traffic to our ecommerce site grew by 127%.
These improvements were instrumental in allowing us to expand our manufacturing capacity and move into a larger facility—an essential step to keep up with demand.
Kratom Earth’s improved customer engagement and trust during expansion
Ecommerce brand Kratom Earth was holding steady with their basic systems in place.
But as the business picked up steam, their operations, particularly customer experience, started showing cracks.
Upgrading their tech stack by adopting new software, such as an email marketing platform, was a fruitful strategy.
Customers who showed interest in specific strains of Kratom, for example, were able to receive targeted emails about those products, making the experience feel much more personal.
Our open rates jumped from about 15% to 30% on targeted emails, and our repeat customer rate increased by around 20%, which was a big win for us.
GroomsDay’s productivity and customer loyalty boost
GroomsDay ran into major roadblocks that were holding their business back, like constant checkout dropoffs and order processing delays.
These issues had affected how customers see them, so founder Chris Badja decided it was time to improve their tech stack to squash these obstructions into smithereens.
I immediately noticed a smoother workflow, and our productivity shot up by about 35%. What really surprised me was the loyalty boost from customers who appreciated the faster, more reliable experience.
After seeing the power of a solid ecommerce technology stack in action, let’s go deeper into the topic by discussing its different components.
Ecommerce Web Development Components: The Frontend vs The Backend
If you’re curious about how an ecommerce tech stack works to support your business, we’ll have to take a quick look under the hood at some of the tech behind it all.
Don’t worry—we’ll keep it relevant and digestible for non-tech entrepreneurs.
Your tech stack has two major systems: the frontend and the backend.
Think of the frontend systems as the customer-facing elements that govern your storefront, shaping your target audience’s experience with your brand.
They manage your ecommerce site’s design, layout, and usability with the help of:
- HTML and CSS for the structure and styling of your site
- JavaScript frameworks like React for adding interactive features
- Content management systems like WordPress or Shopify for flexibility in design and content
On the other hand, backend systems work behind the scenes to make sure your website is running as smoothly as butter.
They manage critical data like customer and product information, as well as process orders and payments.
Backend systems accomplish this with:
- Databases such as MySQL or MongoDB to handle customer and product information
- Programming languages like Python and PHP to manage data and business logic
- Cloud storage and hosting solutions like AWS to store data and run your site smoothly
Customizing your tech stack will depend on your business needs, but you’ll need APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) to link the frontend and backend solutions together.
Doing so is vital to ensuring you have accurate, real-time information to provide to your customers and to develop successful strategies.
Building a Tech Stack: Modern vs Monolithic Platforms
Traditional platforms often struggle to integrate user experience and information management, which is why modern, modular systems like composable and headless commerce sprung up to tackle their predecessors’ many limitations.
Composable commerce combine different tools to create a highly-customized ecommerce infrastructure.
You get to handpick top-tier vendors with specialized services, lending exceptional depth and functionality to your operations.
Plus, their flexibility helps you adapt quickly to changes in the industry and customer preferences. However, these benefits come with trade-offs: complex setups, more integration challenges, and costly, recurring investments.
While headless commerce platforms focus on decoupling the frontend (user interface) and backend (technical infrastructure).
This separation makes it easier to update or customize one without disrupting the other.
While headless can be part of a composable strategy, it’s often a standalone approach for brands seeking greater control over their frontend without fully committing to a composable framework.
Take a look at some top solutions for the job:
Then you have monolithic, better known as all-in-one platforms, which act like Swiss Army knives.
These platforms have everything you might need tucked neatly into one platform, making sure your ecommerce tech stack is always working in harmony.
They’re quick and cheaper to set up because plugins are often available at no extra cost or for a low monthly subscription. Plus, they’re easier to maintain.
The downside? They’re harder to replace if you outgrow the system or require more advanced features.
If you prefer this no-fuss solution, however, we’ve rounded up a list of the best all-in-one platforms for you to check out:
11 Key Components of an Ecommerce Technology Stack
Whether you opt for an all-in-one platform or modular systems, you still need to know what your ecommerce tech stack should be built around.
It includes ecommerce solutions like:
1. Ecommerce platform and website builder
An ecommerce platform or website builder powers your online storefront, handling everything from product listing to facilitating transactions.
These tools need to be robust enough to support your operations and keep your slice of the internet running smoothly 24/7.
With a reliable, user-friendly provider, you can do high-impact things like…
- customize website templates to fit your brand,
- support seamless customer experiences,
- enhance site performance,
- optimize for mobile shopping,
- enable easy inventory management,
- and integrate various tools you need to operate your business.
To clarify: Ecommerce platforms have built-in website builder functionality, but not all website builders are designed to handle full-scale ecommerce needs.
In the case of Shopify, a platform with a significant market share, it serves both as a comprehensive platform and as a website builder.
Wix ecommerce, on the other hand, is Wix’s specialized solution that adds ecommerce capabilities to its well-known website builder.
These two are some of biggest players on the market, though other companies offer more specialized services—which could satisfy your business needs better.
Here are some examples:
Subbly, a subscription-first platform, great for ecommerce brands offering services like memberships, meal and drink delivery, product replenishment, and personalized boxes.
And…
Website builder Shift4Shop that provides dropshippers with unique features and useful integrations that make ecommerce stores and drop shippers collaboration a snap.
Give your digital storefront a solid foundation with an ecommerce platform or website builder.
The following ecommerce platforms can bring your online brand vision to life:
To create a standout, branded website, you can rely on the following website builders to design, launch, and manage it:
Starting small doesn’t mean thinking small. Explore our expert picks for the best ecommerce platforms for small business and dream big.
2. Payment gateways and payment processing providers
Payment gateways and processing software work in tandem to process transactions securely while empowering your shoppers to pay in the way that suits them best.
The payment gateway collects, verifies, and secures your customer’s payment info, then tosses it over to the payment processor to pass on the encrypted payment info to the financial institution.
Once approved, it also transfers funds from your customer's bank to your merchant account.
There are 3 key things to keep in mind when choosing the right payment gateway and payment processors for your ecommerce tech stack:
- Security: Research shows that 25% of people abandon their carts because they don’t trust the site with their payment details. We’re talking about sensitive customer information here. Any crack, payment fraud could find its way in. Providing a secure payment experience builds trust and helps you seal the deal with cautious customers.
- Flexibility: PayPal, a payment gateway and processor all at once, also discovered another cause for cart abandonment—lack of payment options. 13% of shoppers forget what they want if they don’t spot their preferred payment option at checkout. Offering various options, like credit cards, BNPL, and digital wallets, gives customers the freedom to pay how they want.
- Ecommerce platform integration: Integrated payments are a smooth way for customers to complete transactions without leaving your website. This level of convenience can hook in 9 in 10 customers, encouraging them to buy more from you. It’s all about making the journey from cart to confirmation as frictionless as possible.
With the right payment software solutions, you foster goodwill that increases conversion and encourages repeat purchases.
Here’s an example:
Stationery brand Papier turned to Stripe (a payment gateway and processor) to prevent fraudulent transactions and increase payment acceptance.
Since then, the brand saw a 1.6% conversion rate boost. Customer satisfaction also increased when they were able to offer more payment options without having to redirect shoppers to another page.
Source: Stripe
Protect your business and customer information with the help of the best payment gateways and processors.
These top-rated payment gateway providers can broaden your payment options while adding an extra layer of protection to your transactions:
You can count on these top payment processing software solutions to speed up transaction times and protect sensitive data.
3. Shopping cart solutions
Hotjar reported that the average abandoned cart rates have hovered between 68% and 70% since 2014—that’s a lot of customers slipping through your fingers.
A shopping cart tool is essential for reducing cart abandonment and managing the checkout experience better.
By embedding it into your ecommerce website, customers can review and select products as they please and purchase them when ready. They don’t have to restart their browsing session from scratch, which adds convenience and helps convert more visitors into buyers.
From your end, having the right solution in your ecommerce tech stack can…
- Add more security to your transactions when it integrates with your payment software solutions.
- Improve order management, displaying the right SKUs and other product details relevant to your supply chain
- Automate shipping and tax calculation, giving customers a transparent view of the total cost.
Some tools like SamCart also offer a few extras to boost your revenue.
Here’s an example:
Ice.Made.Clear, an online shop selling ice makers, used SamCart for its simple checkout pages but was able to gain more profit and sell additional products and accessories through the tool’s Simplified Upsells.
For more tools like SamCart, here's our curated list of the best shopping cart solutions to get you started:
For a more thorough approach of winning back interested customers who slipped through the cracks, pair your shopping cart solutions with a dedicated abandoned cart solution.
These tools help you send targeted reminders and offer incentives to bring them back and recover lost sales.
Together, you can give your checkout process and cart recovery strategy a full optimization to increase customer satisfaction and gain back lost sales.
Listed below are our top picks for abandoned cart solutions:
4. Customer relationship management (CRM)
Here’s a key global ecommerce trend that you need to know about: 81% of modern shoppers are after personalized experiences.
But you can’t offer personalized experiences if you don’t know your audience.
Having a CRM in your ecommerce toolkit can help you better manage customer data and interactions that can positively impact product development, marketing, and sales.
To get the most out of your CRM, it needs to fit seamlessly into your tech stack and existing workflows.
It’s responsible for gathering, organizing, and storing valuable information, so you need one that’s efficient, intuitive, and adaptable.
With easy access to accurate customer data, you can make data-driven decisions for your business and improve customer experiences.
Here’s an example:
The once brick-and-mortar-only chocolatier Hotel Chocolat succeeded in expanding its online presence, even growing the entire business threefold.
With the help of Salesforce CRM’s Einstein AI for Commerce, they created personalized treat recommendations for their audience, which ended up driving 44% of their sales.
Aside from Salesforce CRM, we’ve compiled a list of the best customer relationship management software to help you find the perfect match for your needs.
Check out our top 10 picks:
5. Inventory management and warehouse management
Excess inventory and stockouts cost the retail industry a staggering US$ 1.99 trillion.
This alarming impact of inventory distortion makes sense when you realize the average inventory accuracy, in general, is low, hovering around 65%.
To combat these two major sources of revenue leaks and customer dissatisfaction, you need two tools in your corner: An inventory management system (IMS) and a warehouse management system (WMS).
These solutions work hand-in-hand to monitor inventory across the board.
Your IMS provides real-time inventory data, while your WMS keep tabs on each item’s location and movement within your warehouses.
Here’s an example:
Small business Lockabox® credits Cin7 Core, as a “fail-safe” system.
When a partner failed to log a 700-unit shipment worth £30,000, the platform caught the discrepancy.
Its real-time inventory tracking capability enabled the ops team discovered the error before it was too late. Without this insight, improper stock estimation would have led to unnecessary stockouts and missed sales opportunities.
Source: Cin7
You, too, can shield your biz from similar unfavorable situations by choosing the right IMS and WMS to add to your ecommerce tech stack.
Keeping customers happy requires efficient stock management.
Find out which inventory management software can help you get there by checking out our recommendations:
Warehouse chaos is going to be a thing of the past with the right warehouse management software. Check out our top WMS solutions:
6. Fulfillment and shipping software
Timely order fulfillment is part and parcel of an excellent customer experience.
In fact, 60% of shoppers wouldn’t purchase from a retailer again if their packages didn't arrive during the scheduled delivery window (early arrival doesn’t get the worm either, the survey showed).
This expectation puts immense pressure on the fulfillment process—particularly the last mile, where most delays and additional costs occur.
For context:
90% of fulfillment costs stem from shipping, with last-mile delivery being a major cost driver. Retailers typically pay$1.50 to $4 per mile for this final stage of delivery, which is riddled with unpredictability (ex: weather, traffic, and other uncontrollable factors).
Streamlining order completion with the help of fulfillment services and shipping software can keep customer interest and avoid costly delays.
Fulfillment services, or third-party logistics (3PL) providers, are the companies that store your products, pick pack and ship orders directly to your customers, and also handle returns.
Shipping software, on the other hand, automates the retrieval of orders from your sales channels, updates inventory information seamlessly, and generates shipping labels in a snap.
These tools also simplify shipping workflows and work with multiple carriers to obtain discounted rates and deliver products on time.
Here’s an example:
Cafely uses ShipStation, an online shipping solution with fulfillment services, to automate its shipping labels and negotiate lower rates, reducing their shipping costs by about 15%.
Together, they boost operational efficiency, giving you time to focus on more crucial parts of your business like product development.
Get your products to customers faster and for less. Partner with one of our highly recommend fulfillment services:
Get smart shipping software that integrates seamlessly into your tech stack and saves you time and resources. Here’s a list of the top solutions you should know about:
7. Customer support systems
Another hallmark of superior customer experience? Excellent customer support.
Its impact may surprise you—60% of respondents said they would choose a brand based on service expectations, and those who rate a company’s customer service as “good” are 38% more likely to spread the word.
That said, meeting customer expectations can be challenging.
Research by conversational commerce platform CM showed that you need to offer customer support that’s…
- Quick. Ninety-two percent agree that you need to respond quickly to questions and concerns.
- Always available. More than 60% expect 24/7 customer service.
- Efficient. Seventy percent prefer a good response than a short, simple response.
Introducing the right customer support tool can help you meet these demands by managing inquiries and automate common queries better and faster.
Customer support tools include chat software, ticketing systems, AI-powered chatbot, and self-service tools—features that don’t just speed up service but also ensure precision.
These tools also foster cross-functional collaboration and give rich customer insights that can propel your business forward.
Here’s an example:
Luxury eyewear brand eye-oo used Tidio to automate part of its customer service process.
The company set up bots to handle common questions and concerns, even outside business hours. This freed up human operators to handle other, more complex queries via live chat.
The bots also collects useful shopper info that operators can leverage to assess customer’s needs and come up with personalized solutions.
The result? Fresh leads and loyal customers who contributed to a €177K revenue gain.
Source: Tidio
Tidio is just one of our favorite customer support tools. Here are a few others that might be a good fit for your ecommerce tech stack:
8. Marketing automation tools
Deloitte’s annual CMO survey highlight a steady decline in marketing budget since September 2022. Today, the average marketing budget makes up only 10.8% of the company’s overall spend.
Marketing connects you to your target audience, from drawing in new customers to creating loyal ones.
It’s undeniably powerful, but juggling every aspect (social media, email, SMS, SEO, SEM, etc.) is a daunting task—especially with purse strings continuously tightening.
So, how do you work smarter and stretch your marketing dollars further?
This is where marketing automation tools waltz in.
These tools rely on smart tech to streamline repetitive tasks, making your campaigns more efficient and effective.
Some specialize in one or two tasks, like managing social media or running email and SMS campaigns. Others offer a suite of features, acting as all-in-one platforms to cover multiple marketing needs.
Here’s a good perspective, emphasizing the value of these tools:
Combining multiple features in a single platform allows brands to reduce the number of individual tools needed in their tech stack and use customer data across channels.
This enables brands to create more personalized and effective marketing strategies and reduce external costs.
Here’s an example:
Vape Superstore initially switched to Omnisend to enhance their SMS marketing, but they soon discovered the platform’s broader automation capabilities.
By integrating their email and SMS efforts, they significantly boosted sign-ups and expanded their reach. Plus, they can now set up and automate these campaigns in just five minutes.
The company reached more customers with minimal human effort and reduced resource drain.
Source: Omnisend
You can count on the following tools for putting your marketing initiatives on autopilot:
9. Email marketing software
Email marketing remains a timeless and highly effective practice. In fact, 70% of shoppers prefer it as a means for brands to communicate with them
But you need the right campaign tactics to reel them in.
These days, highly personalized and well-segmented email campaigns are the rules of the game.
They lead to better engagement and even drive customer lifetime value up by 33%.
However, achieving this level of personalization is easier said than done—63% of marketers reportedly struggle with it.
Email marketing tools will prove invaluable in this case, simplifying and enhancing your email strategies, so you can send your subscribers the right message at the right time.
They’re designed to segment your audience (based on the criteria you set), personalize content, and automate email sequences for timely messages.
Here’s an example:
Festoon House relies on Klaviyo for email automation. This allowed them to create personalized email campaigns triggered by customer actions, like abandoned carts or repeat purchases.
Founder Matt Little shared, “The ability to customize our messaging based on customer behavior has also significantly improved our retention rates.”
This strategy led to a 25% increase in email-driven revenue within t three months.
Reap the benefits of email marketing with the right tool. We’ve rounded up some of the best email marketing software below.
10. Product information management (PIM) systems
Google found that 85% of customers value product information and images when shopping, and 53% would flee if they encountered a bad description.
Accurate product listings are a non-negotiable.
Another compelling reason to streamline product info is that delays in data gathering can hinder your time-to-market. Without a PIM system, 70% of companies take about 2 weeks for a product launch—some take even a month.
PIM systems can centralize and manage all product data—descriptions, pricing, images, specifications— across multiple channels, ensuring consistency and accuracy in real-time.
They’re a must for brands with a diverse and extensive product portfolio.
If you’re looking to boost efficiency and enhance your product listings, consider exploring these top PIM solutions:
11. Analytics and reporting tools
Before you can distill value from your raw data, they must first make sense.
This is why your ecommerce infrastructure needs a digital analytics platform. Data management will be made easier with this tool, which will collect, analyze, and interpret data, so that you can make informed and strategic business decisions.
It can gather data and metrics that can improve your bottom line and customer experience at the same time, such as:
- Website traffic and bounce rate
- Engagement metrics
- Conversion rate
- Customer support interactions
Here’s an example:
NocNoc, an ecommerce marketplace for furnishings, lacked visibility into product performance, resulting in delayed product development.
They adopted MixPanel, which enabled them to retrieve relevant data, such as click-through-rates, in 10 to 20 seconds. In the past, this took them at least a week.
This step-up from their previous process allowed them to add new features to the marketplace, resulting in a 9% conversion rate.
Source: MixPanel
The key takeaway is this: Using analytics and reporting tools will help you make better business decisions faster.
Find out which analytics tool is best for your brand with our shortlist.
How to Choose the Right Tech Stack for Your Business
If you’ve noticed a trend in the real-life examples I shared earlier, it’s likely this: these brands took the time to analyze their business before adding the right platforms and services to their technology suite.
And so should you.
Otherwise, you risk investing in tools that don’t scale well as your business grows or, even worse, binding yourself into a vendor ecosystem that limits your flexibility.
Avoid these pitfalls by considering the following factors:
Your needs and goals
Take note of this line from an Ecommerce Badassery podcast episode:
There are actually such things as too much software—especially when it’s not the right fit for your business at the moment.
Wrong tools at the wrong time can bog down your operations, drain resources, and complicate workflows. Assess your business goals and needs as they stand right now, and identify the gaps and pain points in your current ecommerce tech stack.
Cost
The cost of an ecommerce tech stack is usually distributed across:
- Subscription fees or one-off purchases
- Integration and plugins
- Customization and maintenance
Since it’sin charge of a wide range of activities within your company—from daily operations to growth initiatives—it’s only fitting to set aside a generous budget when building yours.
Before you invest in these new tools, however, you should consider your current situation and the ROI you'll receive.
Scalability
99.99% of businesses seek growth—okay, not a real statistic, but it sounds true, right?
Start strong with a good base, then build layers in stages.
For smooth scaling, I advocate for incremental integration, testing each tool before full-scale deployment.
Centralizing data in a CRM or data warehouse is critical for unified analytics and personalized customer experiences at scale, which improves both operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.
Conduct regular reviews to see if there are ways you can optimize your tech stack and ensure they’re growing with your biz.
User-friendliness
Before investing in a tool, consider the team members who will be using them.
While some learning curve is expected, your new platforms shouldn’t require intensive training.
Keep ease-of-use in mind. Some tools need to be accessible for non-technical users, while it’s completely fine for more specialized solutions to require someone with technical expertise.
Compatibility
A tech stack works only in unison, never in silos.
A tool that doesn’t integrate well with your tech stack will be a source of headaches and unnecessary costs when transferring data and creating workflows.
This is what IceCartel’s co-founder Joosep Seitam did to ensure they only bring in tools that add value to their current ecommerce tech stack.
We map out each tool's functionality and compatibility before adding anything new.
Smooth integration is about working smarter, especially when managing high-value inventory and time-sensitive shipping.
With a strong API framework and automation, our systems can now ‘talk’ to each other, reducing manual processes by over 40%.
The simplest way to do this is to choose new tools that integrate natively with your existing tools.
If it’s not available, middleware solutions like Zapier are suitable for SMBs and custom APIs for ecommerce enterprises.
Choosing the right tool is just one half of the equation. The other half lies with how you make them fit together as a whole and grow with your business.
Final Thoughts
Just like David showed: It’s not always brute strength that wins, which means selecting best-of-breed tools doesn’t guarantee success.
It’s a lot more important to focus on finding what works for your goals, systems, workflows, and your team.
Read unbiased tool reviews—like ours—and look for free trial opportunities first to avoid common pitfalls, like overspending or tool incompatibility.
These are crucial steps for making informed decisions that set you up for ecommerce success.
To wrap things up, I’m leaving you with a few additional resources for building a results-oriented ecommerce tech stack:
- 20 Ecommerce Platform Features to Simplify Your Search For the Best
- How to Choose an Ecommerce Platform: The Complete Guide For Every Ecomm Brand
- A Complete Ecommerce Integration Guide: Benefits, Challenges & Strategies
- Ecommerce Implementation: How To Set Up Your Ecommerce Platform For Success
And don’t forget to subscribe to The Ecomm Manager to receive the latest insights, news, and software recommendations.
