At NRF 2025, BigCommerce, an open, composable ecommerce platform for fast-growing and established B2C and B2B brands and retailers, introduced Catalyst, a composable storefront framework designed to simplify headless commerce.

Built on Next.js and hosted on Vercel, Catalyst offers unmatched speed, flexibility, and customization. With one click from the Control Panel, marketers can now launch and design a new store that comes optimized for high performance out of the box, combining modern technology with seamless marketing usability—no trade-offs required. Catalyst’s differentiator is its fully integrated marketing-friendly visual editor, Makeswift, which sets a new standard for creating fast, modern ecommerce storefronts without the limits of rigid templates or heavy development costs.

During BigCommerce’s NRF speaking session, Daniel Burrow, vice president of sales and marketing at UPLIFT Desk, shared that since relaunching its storefront on Catalyst in December 2024, the site runs faster, bounce rates declined, his team can make changes to the site much more quickly, and developers are now freed up to focus on higher priorities. “Catalyst has provided the agility and ease of use we need to stay ahead in a competitive market,” Burrow said.

Malte Ubl, CTO at Vercel, addressed common misconceptions about composable commerce, emphasizing Catalyst’s ability to bridge advanced development tools with ease of use for teams across organizations. With Catalyst, brands can deliver high-performing, visually stunning storefronts while removing the complexity typically associated with headless solutions.

Al Williams, general manager of B2C at BigCommerce, also shared that Catalyst provides brands, from a composable standpoint, the framework to support the unknown. A composable architecture gives businesses flexibility to adapt to market changes. Its modular architecture is built using composable standards, giving brands and retailers the freedom to adapt their commerce strategy as it evolves without the risk of outgrowing the platform.

The panel’s closing remarks centered on the customer. Instead of responding to market urgency, Catalyst was built on the needs of customers – giving them a framework to grow in an unknown future, while empowering developers with agility and equipping marketers with intuitive, easy to use design tools.

For technology solution providers, it’s exciting and appreciated when a customer is willing to speak publicly about their successful adoption of your technology, and that excitement increases significantly when the client shares their story on stage at the world’s largest retail event – NRF!

On January 13, during NRF 2025: Retail’s Big Show in New York City, Sarah Derba, Senior Director, Information Technology at WSS presented the session Unlocking Unified Commerce: The Essential Role of Modern POS.

The session focused on WSS’ implementation of Aptos ONE, a modern POS solution. Dozens of WSS stores went live on Aptos ONE immediately prior to the holiday shopping period, with the remainder adopting the solution in early 2025.

Based in California, WSS is a subsidiary of Foot Locker Inc. and operates more than 140 stores nationwide. WSS offers a vast selection of footwear, apparel and accessories from top brands including Nike, Jordan, adidas, Vans, Puma, Converse and others. Recently celebrating 40 years of retail success, WSS is embracing cutting-edge technologies designed to meet the demands of today while ensuring adaptability for the future.

During her time on stage, Sarah explained how Aptos ONE is delivering new levels of speed, efficiency and innovation to WSS’ store operations and customer engagement strategies. She also mentioned the benefits of empowering WSS employees to ring up transactions, add loyalty points, access real-time inventory and customer data, complete omnichannel orders, and much more – all from a single, mobile-first device.

With more and more retailers evaluating modern POS and unified commerce technologies, the audience valued Sarah’s energy and candor in sharing opportunities and lessons learned from WSS’ implementation of a cloud-native and microservices-based POS application.

Beyond the technology itself, Sarah also highlighted the importance of having an honest and collaborative relationship with technology partners. She emphasized the need for vendors who actively listen to client feedback throughout the project and respond in a timely and thoughtful manner.