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Read on Medium →SFCC implementations are complex — mistakes are expensive
Salesforce Commerce Cloud (B2C Commerce) is one of the most capable enterprise ecommerce platforms available. It's also one of the most complex to implement correctly. A misstep at the architecture stage — the wrong cartridge path structure, a poorly planned custom object model, or a tight-coupling between frontend and business logic — can cost months of remediation work later.
Having worked on multiple SFCC implementations, here are the five mistakes that appear most often.
Mistake 1: Ignoring the cartridge path hierarchy
SFCC's cartridge system is powerful, but the order of cartridges in your path determines which version of code runs. Many teams add custom cartridges without fully understanding how overrides propagate — leading to unexpected behaviour when platform updates or new cartridges are introduced. Always design your cartridge path intentionally, documenting which cartridge is responsible for which functionality.
Mistake 2: Building too much custom pipeline code
SFCC's pipeline/controller architecture can tempt developers into writing extensive custom business logic in pipeline steps. This creates maintainability problems as the codebase grows. The better approach is to keep pipelines thin — delegate business logic to script modules that can be unit tested and reused.
Mistake 3: Neglecting performance from the start
SFCC performance issues are often baked in during implementation — uncached ISML templates, synchronous third-party API calls in the request path, oversized custom object queries. By the time these are visible in production metrics, they can require significant refactoring to address. Performance testing should begin during development, not after go-live.
Mistake 4: Not planning third-party integrations carefully
Every third-party integration — payment, reviews, loyalty, email — adds complexity. Teams frequently underestimate integration effort and create point-to-point connections that are brittle and hard to debug. Using SFCC's service framework consistently for external calls gives you logging, error handling, and circuit-breaking out of the box.
Mistake 5: Skipping the LINK cartridge certification process
If you're building an integration intended to be shared or sold — a review widget, a loyalty module — Salesforce's LINK certification process exists for a reason. Certified cartridges follow established patterns, reducing implementation risk for the merchants using them. Skipping certification creates technical debt that surfaces when merchants try to upgrade or extend.
Read the complete breakdown with solutions for each mistake on Medium.