How Retail is Adopting Microservices

The pace at which retail is bringing about changes is incredible. Consumer expectations are constantly evolving to new heights. New technologies are constantly entering the market to support all of these. Of these, microservices seem to form the best fit for retail. Servicing painfully slow monolithic packages becomes more risky and expensive. In this article, we attempt to list some major ways in which microservices are changing retail. We also try to suggest the best ways in which retail can shift into microservices. 

Some of the world’s biggest enterprises are adopting microservices. This is being driven by intense competition among the different retail companies. In a survey of 1200 respondents by IBM, 27% claimed that microservices offered greater flexibility to scale up and down, which is why retail can adapt to the latest changes quickly with microservices.

However, there are other advantages to adopting microservices, and this is why retailers are continuing to adopt this architecture model. Here are the main advantages:

Future-proofing the business

A monolithic architecture model cannot adapt quickly to changes that appear around the corner. Disruption is the order of the day. Technologies, system changes, and changed business processes appear in a flash. In such cases, a monolithic application package, unlike a microservices package, cannot be elastic.Being organized as small independent processes makes it easy for microservices systems to mold themselves to systemic and external changes quickly. The fact that a microservices model readily adapts itself to changes in the business environment is one reason why it is popular.

Scalability

Scaling an existing system up or down brings out the best or worst of the current system. The fact that an increase in business needs the system to scale up is the good news. These days, with online shopping emerging into prominence in the post-COVID-19 times, demand surges take place frequently during festival seasons and when discount offers are in place.

With a monolithic system in place, which is merely a single large package, scaling it up to meet the latest demands is a tough and almost impossible job to complete successfully.

Read our blog” Why eCommerce Microservices and Headless Are the Future of Online Retail”.

However, in the case of microservices, there is no need to scale the entire application. Only the concerned service has to be scaled up or down. This kind of software setup also promotes efficient usage of resources and allows control of operations at a more basic level.

Digitization

Businesses, including retail, are attempting digitization at all levels. Unlike some, which have just started, many other corporations and enterprises are already there. Microservices as an architecture model provide the required agility that is the basis for digital transformation activity.

Flexible in many ways

With each service designed and developed to be an independent unit, flexibility can be exercised in more than one way. Whether it is about the choice of a particular technology for a service, or the introduction or extension of a function or service, whether it is about shifting to a new vendor, microservices offer a lot of flexibility in operations and maintenance.

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With each module being a standalone unit, each can be built with a different technology or one that suits the function best. In this way, you are also not tied down to a single vendor.

Time to Market

In today’s intensely competitive retail market, it is important to move any innovation to the market at the earliest. It is crucial and decides between the make-or-break of a new revolutionary idea. At the earliest, microservices and an agile environment is simply what are required to roll out a new idea to the market at the earliest.

Version upgrades to applications can also reach your customers at the earliest, and microservices allow CI/CD to function to perfection.

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The Database

These are the best advantages that microservices can provide for retail. However, all of these can be true only if supported by an appropriate database. The RDBMS structure is unsuited for a microservices-based application. However, the RDBMS can work with accuracy inside one microservice.

Therefore, a microservices-based model would require the support of multiple data models as this will provide the flexibility required in the data operations.

How can Retailers Best Adopt Microservices

Whereas many of the major retailers are on the path to adopting microservices or have already done so, many of the others are hesitant to do so. A basic challenge for them boils down to which of the services/capabilities to migrate.

For an online retailer, extracting from the monolithic package involves careful removal of the logic, data, and user interface components and then redirecting them to the new service.

Retailers, who are not so fond of risks, do not want to touch microservices but instead prefer to stick to their old monolithic systems. Many of them, however, do not understand that there is much less risk with microservices systems. 

Microservices Adoption Procedure

For retailers wanting to adopt microservices, it is a good idea to first pick up one feature at a time and transform it into a new service. It would be foolish to turn the whole system into microservices all at once.

A fully developed new application can sit alongside the monolithic application and function together. Once free of errors and proven to give the desired output, each of the other services can be dismantled out of the monolithic application and developed into separate services.

It is also important to remember that microservices adoption calls for a lot of resources that should be kept handy for disposal. Microservices implementation can fail if you are short on resources.
 
Closing Thoughts
 
Retailers who fail to adopt microservices will find other retailers quickly adopting and bringing innovations to the market. Biggies like Netflix and Amazon have adopted microservices and become market leaders in innovation. It is, therefore, a good idea for retailers to jump onto the microservices bandwagon for survival.
 
How SayOne Can Help

At Sayone, we design and implement microservices systems that do not have complex architectural layers, and this enables the services to deliver exceptionally fast performance. Moreover, we provide services that are significantly decoupled, allowing you to launch independent services and not end up with the usual inter-dependent microservices that work more or less like a monolith.

We design the microservices keeping in mind the margin required to allow for the transition into the new system of your organization’s legacy architecture as well as expand into the cloud system. Our microservices comprise lightweight code, and we provide competitive pricing options for our clients.

Are you looking to outsource microservices development? Call us today!

Our microservices are built according to the latest international security guidelines that ensure the complete safety of all the data. We also ensure that we deliver the services within the stipulated deadlines and we always guarantee a quick turnaround time for our clients. Equipped with the best infrastructure and the latest tools and technologies, our expert developers will provide you with the best microservices that are easily scalable, enabling a good ROI in the shortest period of time.