Today's Deep-Dive: Vendure

Welcome to the deep dive your essential shortcut to gaining real knowledge quickly.

Hey everyone. So today we're

We're really diving into the engine room of modern enterprise retail. We actually

had a request from a listener. Oh, yeah

Yeah, someone looking to understand how these

Massive companies, you know the ones handling complex B2B sales are running huge

multi-venture marketplaces

Uh-huh how they manage their commerce ops without just using simple off-the-shelf

software, right?

We're definitely moving way beyond the basic online shopping cart here. Our mission

today is

Well, it's to demystify one of the biggest shifts in digital commerce this whole

idea of headless architecture

And we're gonna use a framework called vendor as our guide

We'll explain why this kind of customizable open source solution is becoming well

pretty essential for businesses with really complex

Unique needs especially trying to make it clear for beginners. Exactly. We've been

digging through the key info

pulling insights straight from

The vendor github repository their docs in there kind of core marketing philosophy

It really spells out why they're built for scale and flexibility

Okay, but before we unlock the power of headless commerce, let's quickly thank the

supporter of this deep dive

This segment is brought to you by safe server great partner

Yeah

Safe server takes care of the specialized hosting you need for advanced software

like vendor and they support you on your whole digital transformation journey

You can find out more and get started at

www.safeserver.de

Awesome. Thanks safe server

Right, then let's focus on vendor. It calls itself a customizable commerce platform

built for scale

Okay, so let's start at ground zero for our learner

Like you said when most folks think about selling online

They probably picture one single platform doing everything right the storefront

inventory payments. Yeah all in one

So what exactly is headless commerce and maybe more importantly?

Why would a major company pick a specialized open source thing like vendor over say

a big standard sauce platform?

Yeah, that's the key question

See the core problem with those traditional all-in-one systems is they can be

really rigid

Everything's tightly coupled tightly coupled meaning the front end the website the

customer sees is stuck together with the back end the inventory the pricing

Logic all that stuff. Yeah, if you want a new mobile app or maybe some fancy voice

interface

Yeah, you just have to hope your big platform supports it easily often. It doesn't

headless commerce completely decouples those parts think of it like

Like a body and a head they're separated but they're connected by let's say a

central nervous system and that nervous system

That's the API the application programming interface precisely vendor is the body

in this analogy

It's that robust back end built with TypeScript and no JS. This is the brain the

logic center

Inventory pricing rules order security everything

Okay, the head is the front end the part that customer actually interacts with and

that could be anything a website sure

But also a mobile app of VR experience, maybe even a smart kiosk in a store

So the vendor core doesn't really care how you're shopping whether it's your phone

or some smart fridge screen

It just does the commerce part exactly that and that separation is absolutely key

to doing real

Multi-channel commerce effectively you use the same single back end that vendor

core to power every single customer touch point

You can dream up and for big companies that consistency and scale is

Critical got it. So the source is defined vendor as an open source headless

commerce platform an enterprise ready framework

Let's talk tech for a second. Why type script and no JS. What's the benefit there?

Well, it's really a choice geared towards stability and speed type script. It adds

static typing to JavaScript for non-devs

That just means the code is more robust less prone to certain kinds of errors

Developers can build faster and with more confidence fewer bugs basic your bugs.

Yeah, and no GS

It's built for handling lots of connections at once high concurrency means the

platform is designed for speed and can handle massive traffic spikes without

You know falling over which is important for enterprise scale

And what is the core platform actually give you right out of the box? It provides

two main pillars really first

There's the commerce framework. They describe it as lean unopinionated foundational

blocks

It's built on another powerful framework called nest.js nest.js. Yeah, I think of

nest.js is like a

Really solid well understood architectural blueprint for building complex

applications

It helps ensure the whole system is structured logically like a big organized Lego

kit

Scalable defendable. Okay Lego kit. I like that and the second pillar that sounds

like it's more for the business users

The ones not writing code exactly. That's the operational side a highly

customizable admin dashboard

This is the interface for the day-to-day stuff managing orders products customers

pricing

Yeah, it's built with modern tools like react and tailwind. So it feels

Well modern. Yeah, not like some clunky system from 10 years ago, right and

something that really jumped out

Especially thinking about developers is the speed they claim you can get started

the sources boast vendor can be up and running locally in

Less than two minutes. Just one command. Yeah, that seems fast that immediate

feedback must be a huge draw

Oh, it absolutely is that rapid setup just lowers the barrier to entry massively

teams can kick the tires test it out

Almost immediately see if it fits. Okay, but let's pivot to the really critical

question the trade-off

Why would a huge company choose to build their commerce system on an open source

framework?

I mean that means taking on more the engineering load themselves, right?

Why not just pay a subscription to a big convenient sauce platform? That is the

core conflict, isn't it?

It's control versus convenience saws definitely offer simplicity upfront

But you are fundamentally constrained by their platform their features their

roadmap. You're locked in they're locked in

Vendor is explicitly built as they say for when standard saws platforms can't

accommodate your unique business model

If your business needs something special and you have to create three clunky

painful workarounds

Just to launch your new product line on a saws platform. What's not convenient

anymore. Is it?

It's actually holding you back costing you time and money. Okay, so if my business

has really complex needs

Maybe I offer a unique service alongside physical products or I have intricate

loyalty tiers or

Weird shipping rules. I need a system that bends to my needs not the other way

around precisely and that deep

Customization is primarily handled through vendors extensible plug-in architecture.

This is the key

This is where you build that say 10% of unique functionality that really differentiates

your business, right?

You can tailor pretty much every single aspect of the commerce solution using these

dynamic plug-ins and they become reusable modules, too

So you're not hacking the core system. You're extending it properly in a structured

maintainable way. That makes a lot of sense

What about those big enterprise level features? Does it handle things like global

operations out of the box?

Yes, internationalization is built right in from the start. It's designed for

seamless global operations

It supports multi currency transactions cross-border omni-channel commerce

Complex tax rules all without needing massive re-engineering later on okay and

critically important for big companies

Mm-hmm security and ownership. We keep hearing vendor is 100%

Independent OSS open source software

What does that actually mean for a company putting its business on this platform?

It means they achieve full ownership of the platform. That's a really powerful

argument, especially for large

Maybe more risk averse organizations

They avoid being tied to the whims the roadmap changes the sudden pricing hikes of

a closed proprietary SaaS provider

They control their own destiny technologically speaking doesn't open source

sometimes come with worries about support maintenance

Guarantees if something breaks who fixes it

That's a fair point and that's where the licensing model comes in

The core platform is licensed under the GPL v3 now for the listener

This basically ensures the core code stays free and open the community can review

it improve it use it

But for those large enterprises that need, you know legal assurances dedicated

support channels guaranteed response times

They offer a commercial license to the VCO this list companies manage their risk

effectively

While still getting all the flexibility and ownership benefits of the open source

core

So you get the ownership and the flexibility but you can buy a safety net if you

need it. Got it

Okay, let's shift gears now to the practical side. Where is all this power actually

being used?

When we talk about complex commerce, what specific real-world business models are

we seeing vendor enable?

Yeah, vendor really seems to shine in I'd say three main areas where those

traditional

Simpler commerce solutions tend to struggle or just break down completely. Okay

area one first up B2B e-commerce business to business

Right. Give us a simple example of why a standard online store platform often fails

here

Well, B2B is just fundamentally more complex than selling directly to consumers,

right?

Think about a distributor network. Maybe customer a gets a special 15% discount,

but only on bulk orders over ten thousand dollars

Meanwhile customer B needs all their orders over

$5,000 to be approved by two different managers in their company before the order

is even processed a

Typical D2C platform just can't handle that kind of granular logic. Yeah

So vendor allows companies to take these really complex workflows things involving

custom pricing tiers per customer

multi-step approval chains

Deep account hierarchies where one person manages multiple sub accounts and turn

them into smooth reliable digital experiences

It adapts to those specific industry needs that level of custom roles. Yeah,

definitely beyond the usual Shopify store

Okay, what about marketplaces? That sounds complex, too

That's the second major area multi-vendor or multi-tenant commerce think building

your own Etsy or maybe a specialized b2b marketplace

Or even an Amazon competitor if you're ambitious building that requires really

sophisticated tools

You need to manage potentially hundreds or thousands of separate sellers each maybe

with their own separate inventories

You need to give them customizable storefronts so they can maintain their brand

identity

They need their own individual seller dashboards to manage their products and

orders

Wow. Yeah, and all the while the central platform operator

You needs to handle the commissions the payout schedules the overall permissions

taxes

It's a huge architectural challenge and vendor provides the framework to manage

that complexity without building everything from scratch

Okay, b2b marketplaces. What's the third area custom D2C exactly custom D2C models?

This is really about breaking free from what they call cookie cutter commerce

It's for brands whose business model is their unique selling proposition. Give me

an example

Okay, think of a company selling highly personalized maybe made to order furniture

They might have a dynamic 3d configurator on their website where you choose the

wood the fabric the size and that

Configuration needs to link directly to complex supply chain logic, maybe even

trigger specific manufacturing processes

Or think about a subscription box service with five different tiers

Complex bundling rules variable shipping schedules and maybe add on purchases

things that require unique logic unique logic

Exactly, if your brand's vision relies on that kind of custom experience

Maybe blending digital and physical touch points in a novel way

Vendor use you the underlying toolkit to actually write and execute that unique

business logic

Okay, so for those kinds of complex niche applications, the flexibility is

definitely worth the extra engineering effort compared to sauce

Let's talk about that engineering effort for a sec the developer experience or DX

What is the tech stack offer developers to make building and crucially maintaining

these complex systems easier?

Yeah, they seem to focus heavily on tools that boost developer productivity and

importantly maintain ability

We already mentioned TypeScript in nest.js which provide that structure and safety

net and crucially a really big one

Is that they expose pretty much all their functions in data via graph QL. Okay

graph QL for the beginner listening

What does graph QL actually do for the business? Why is that better than older ways?

Okay, think of it like a

Really efficient very specific waiter in older systems using something called rest

API's

often when your app asks for data the server might send back a whole bunch of

information maybe way more than you actually need for that specific

Screen like getting the entire menu when you just ask for the price of coffee

wasted data exactly wasted data wasted bandwidth

Graph QL lets the developer writing the front-end app request exactly the specific

pieces of data

They need for that particular view and absolutely no more

Just give me the product name price and inventory account for this specific ID

Okay, this dramatically reduces the amount of data flying back and forth which

makes the website or app feel much faster much more responsive

Especially on mobile networks. It's way more efficient and those saved milliseconds

as we know can translate into millions in revenue for big e-commerce sites

Absolutely performance is key. They also focus a lot on automation tools for

developers. They provide a CLI

That's a command line interface basically text commands and an automation SDK a

software development kit

Okay, that sounds like pure tech jargon again

Can you translate the business benefit of a CLI and an automation SDK? Sure think

of it like this

These are tools that automate the boring repetitive error prone parts of coding

testing and deploying the software

Okay

So it helps streamline the workflow when a developer makes a change say they add a

new discount rule

These tools help ensure that change gets automatically tested in various ways and

the deployed reliably across the entire system

Maybe to multiple servers it saves tons of developer time

Reduces the chance of human error during deployment and helps keep the whole

complex infrastructure running smoothly and consistently

It's about efficiency and reliability got it less manual work fewer mistakes

Okay, and finally the lifeblood of any open source project like this the community

What do the sources tell us about the health and activity of the vendor ecosystem?

Is it alive and well?

Yeah, the stats look pretty solid. Actually, it's a good sign of project health on

Github, which is where the code lives. It has six point six thousand stars and one

point two thousand forks

That indicates quite a bit of active interest in usage stars and forks

Basically measures of popularity and people tinkering with it pretty much. Yeah

popularity and engagement

But maybe more importantly it has a large contributor base

239 contributors listed Wow

239 people have actually submitted code or improvements. That's significant

That means a huge amount of peer review and development happening outside of just

the core founding team

Correct that diversity of contribution is really healthy for an open source project

The source has also mentioned an active community of over 3,000 developers globally

interacting in places like slack or discord and there are testimonials highlighting

the quote

Astonishing level of involvement from the core vendor team themselves in those

community channels

providing apparently fast and helpful support

For an enterprise that's going to rely on this platform as a core piece of

infrastructure for years having that active supportive ecosystem is

Basically a non-negotiable requirement. It provides confidence. Absolutely

Okay, let's try to wrap this deep dive up thinking back to our learner the person

just trying to get their head around this complex

commerce landscape

What's the key takeaway here? What does vendor really represent?

I think vendor represents the modern necessity for businesses whose models just don't

fit in the standard box

It's the flexible powerful back-end the body for commerce systems that have

fundamentally outgrown the limitations of those

Easier but more rigid standardized sauce platforms, right? It provides that

essential separation

the headless architecture we talked about

Allowing you to build any front-end you want and it gives you the enterprise grade

tools and the extensibility needed to manage truly complex

Business logic whether that's b2b marketplaces or unique DTC offerings

So it frees businesses from the constraints of someone else's pre-built roadmap

Exactly by offering true code ownership and massive extensibility

It's the ultimate customization toolkit really but specifically designed for

commerce complexity

Makes sense the ultimate customization toolkit for commerce complexity

I like that and before we sign off just a final reminder that this deep dive was

supported by safe server

They're your partner for the specialized hosting and digital transformation

solutions that help you actually leverage the power of platforms like vendor

You can learn more at www.safeserver.de

Thanks again safe server

okay, finally as always a provocative thought for you the listener to consider as

The demand for these hyper customized online experiences keeps growing needing

complex b2b pricing unique subscription models

Multi vendor logic will this shift towards flexible developer centric headless

frameworks like vendor actually become the new default

Could they eventually leave the traditional monolithic ecommerce platforms behind

kind of like relics gathering dust in the face of accelerating digital?

Complexity hmm definitely something worth mulling over where does the balance

Thanks for joining us on the deep dive. We'll catch you on the next one

Thanks for joining us on the deep dive. We'll catch you on the next one