Rethinking commerce architecture: Start with intent, not systems

For too long, digital commerce has started in the wrong place - inside a system. The conversation often begins with questions like “Can our ERP handle this?” or “Does our platform support that?

Before long, the system becomes the strategy.But a system/stack, no matter how powerful, isn’t your business model. It’s a tool. And when tools start defining decisions, creativity and competitiveness quietly erode. I’ve seen that story play out too many times - smart people stuck inside slow systems, not because they lack ideas, but because they started in the wrong place.

The problem with starting inside a system

For the past decade, most B2B and DTC businesses have grown on split foundations. DTC runs on Shopify, Magento, or whatever platform an agency pushed at the time. Wholesale lives elsewhere, often a legacy platform or a custom build that nobody dares to touch. Between them sits the ERP, somehow responsible for keeping everything glued together.

That setup wasn’t built on vision. It was built on convenience.

It worked when channels were few, buyers were patient, and margins forgiving. But today, that same setup slows you down. What once looked efficient now looks like an anchor.

The hidden cost of system first thinking

The cracks don’t appear overnight. They creep in.

A product update fails to sync. A price list goes missing. An ERP job crashes late on a Friday. Then it becomes a pattern - duplicate data, fragile integrations, and license costs stacking up.

I once met a brand where the e-commerce manager joked that their real title should be “chaos firefighter”. Campaigns only happened when nothing was broken, which wasn’t often.

That’s what happens when systems take the lead. The business starts reacting to technology instead of driving it. Strategy becomes survival.Then it’s a hell bent marathon race until you finally give in and call it quits.

ERP isn’t the enemy. It’s the symptom

ERP systems were never the problem. They were built for what they were meant to do: manage inventory, logistics, and finance. What’s changed is everything around them.

We now expect more. Like buying experiences that feel as intuitive as on the stores you visit regularly and of course - real time data. That expectation gap is the real issue - not the ERP itself, but what we’ve asked it to become.

The question isn’t how to make ERP do more. It’s why we keep starting there in the first place.

Start with intent, not integration

Here’s the part that changes everything.Instead of starting inside a system, start inside a problem.

Ask what outcome you want, what experience you want to deliver, what process actually needs to improve. Once that’s clear, the technology becomes a means, not a map. When you begin with intent, new possibilities open up - often simpler, smarter, and more future-proof than whatever the system-first path would have led you to.

I’ve seen teams go from “we can’t do that in our ERP” to “we can actually build that next week.”The only thing that changed was how they started thinking.

Building for clarity

Modern commerce doesn’t mean throwing out ERP or legacy tools. It means redefining their roles. Let ERP stay the operational backbone if you like, focused on what it does best: inventory, finance, and logistics.

Let commerce, product, and content live on a unified, API first backend that complements it and connects everything else. The truth is that most ERPs were never designed for a world where digital commerce drives the business. They were built for an era of warehouses and invoices, not customer experience. Yet many companies still expect them to run the digital show.

Modern platforms like Geins can now handle that layer directly - managing pricing, segmentation, and assortments inside a flexible backend built for speed. That frees the ERP from work it was never meant to do and gives teams the freedom to evolve faster.

That shift creates real clarity. It brings control, transparency, and the ability to move without the weight of another replatforming cycle. It’s also where automation and AI can finally do what they’re supposed to do: simplify the work, not add to it.

When systems support strategy instead of defining it, innovation becomes possible again. The key is to think about what you want to achieve, not what your current stack allows. Because the moment you start with purpose, better answers appear.

The real shift

Most companies already know their stack isn’t perfect. But the real transformation starts when they stop asking, “What can our system do?” and start asking, “What are we actually trying to achieve?”

A system isn’t your business model. It’s just the machinery behind it. And if you let that machinery decide your direction, you’ll always be a step behind the ones who didn’t.

This isn’t about ending ERP. It’s about rethinking everything around it - the structure, the priorities, and the mindset that technology should enable progress, not set its limits.

Because the real transformation in commerce isn’t technical. It’s philosophical. And maybe, that’s the part we’ve been missing.