How Medusa is Revolutionizing the Ecommerce Space
Tags: ecommerce, opensource, webdev
Published: 2023-04-23 19:46:29

The ecommerce space continues to experience ground-breaking trends that are set to catapult the industry to new levels in the future. The ecommerce market is [expected to hit growth rates](https://www.asendia.com/2022-e-commerce-market-handbook) of up to 7.4 trillion dollars come 2025.

New and emerging consumer trends continue to shape advances being made in ecommerce. [Medusa](https://medusajs.com/) is an open-source composable ecommerce engine that provides digital building blocks for commerce applications.

In this article, we are going to learn about why Medusa should be your go to for building commerce applications. We will also look at what is contained in a Medusa toolkit.

In the subsequent article, we'll then build an ecommerce website with Medusa.

##Medusa as a Game Changer

Medusa was launched in 2021 by co-founders: Nicklas Gellner, Oliver Juhl and Sebastian Rindom. Since then it has attracted thousands of developers and thousands of different projects have been initiated. 

Medusa seeks to ease the ecommerce platform development process by providing an avenue to build without constraints. Merchants can scale their business faster and quickly without having to worry about multi-vendor marketplace restrictions.


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/18dp9c3kgypfbkszdot7.png)

##Why Medusa

Medusa provides a [composable architecture](https://medusajs.com/blog/composable-commerce/) ideal for building commerce applications. The ability to handle different components separately in an ecommerce application provides the flexibility needed to build customizable sites and aptly implement an [omnichannel strategy](https://medusajs.com/blog/why-headless-commerce-is-the-perfect-solution-for-omnichannel-support/).

Commerce applications built with Medusa can also quickly adapt to on and off-market demands such as during peak and off-peak through implementing development catered towards changing, unique, and growing customer demands.

The composable approach means that the development of components is faster which is a best practice in the software development lifecycle.

Medusa allows developers to integrate third-party APIs of their own choice thus giving them much-needed freedom to custom-make their platform to their liking. This is quite revolutionary in the ecommerce space as it means that;

- Merchants can scale at their own pace without any restrictions. Whichever trajectory merchants want to take, the decision is in their hands and no need to worry about proprietary software restrictions.
- The development lifecycle also becomes so simplified and faster as they do not have to wait for authorizations or any go-ahead to implement any changes or change course.
- Being open source, developers are also at an advantage to contribute their ideas and join in being an integral part of the growth and development of Medusa.
- The composable nature is also quite adaptable. The covid pandemic revealed just how consumer patterns and trends change in a dash. As a merchant, you thus need a solution that gives you proof of future adaptability in a shorter time to stay in per with changing demands.
- Being an open-source solution, you are also at liberty to use the latest SEO techniques to rank high in search outcomes. You are thus not reliant on pre-built software.

So, you might be wondering, what custom uses are applicable in ecommerce?

Different commerce applications have different needs. Use cases can range from:

- Order fulfillment needs.
- Order management depending on factors such as delivery location and returns.
- Payment providers introduced depending on customer preferences.
- Multiwarehouse support.
- Subscription models among many other preferred customizations depending on customers and merchants.

The advantage achieved here is that as a merchant, you are providing customers with what they need and prefer as opposed to restricting them to what proprietary solutions restrict you to.

This is a great game-changer as customers feel seen, understood and catered for. It's thus a no-brainer that it leads to more customer returns and higher sales in turn.

##What is in a Medusa Toolkit

###[Medusa CLI](https://docs.medusajs.com/cli/reference)

"The Medusa CLI serves as a tool that allows you to perform important commands while developing with Medusa." -Medusa.

###[Medusa Backend](https://docs.medusajs.com/development/backend/install)

As Medusa puts it, "This is any Node.js project with @medusajs/medusa installed. The core Medusa package orchestrates Medusa's commerce modules to expose a powerful and customizable REST API."

An alternative to directly interacting with the REST APIs is by using [Medusa JS Client](https://docs.medusajs.com/js-client/overview). 

###[Admin Dashboard](https://docs.medusajs.com/admin/quickstart)

"An intuitive admin dashboard along with the Medusa backend and commerce modules. Merchants can use it to perform data management, and processes such as manage orders, products, customers, and much more." -Medusa.

###[Medusa Plugins](https://docs.medusajs.com/plugins/overview)

Medusa has plugins for storage, payment, search, file service and much more. You can also use this [documentation](https://docs.medusajs.com/development/plugins/create) to create a plugin.

###Medusa Storefronts

To create and customize your storefronts you can use Medusa's storefronts to get started quickly. You can easily opt to get started with [Medusa React](https://docs.medusajs.com/medusa-react/overview) or [Nextjs storefront](https://docs.medusajs.com/starters/nextjs-medusa-starter).

###Medusa APIs

Medusa has different API endpoints that developers can use to tailor-make their custom solutions by integrating third-party tools.

Here's the [Admin API Reference](https://docs.medusajs.com/api/admin) and [Store API Reference](https://docs.medusajs.com/api/store).

Medusa also has [ecommerce features](https://docs.medusajs.com/modules/overview) offered as Commerce Modules. Modules are reusable pieces of code that ensure faster development by their reusable nature. They make it easier to not only develop but also reduce technical debt instances.

They include, orders, cart and checkout, multi-warehouse and even advanced product configurations and management.

##Get Started with Medusa

Start building your commerce application today and power your way toward the ecommerce future.

Medusa allows you to access top-tier benefits that set you as a leader in the ecommerce world. Ecommerce is a field with endless possibilities and ever-changing trends. To effectively adapt, you need to build custom composable applications that guarantee you the flexibility needed to stay afloat.

Ecommerce solutions are not a one-size-fits-all, therefore, choosing a solution that extends you the flexibility of choice is a wise move.

You can also check some great blogs on building ecommerce websites using Medusa. For example, [Next.js Storefront: Building a Food Ecommerce Restaurant with Medusa and Paystack](https://medusajs.com/blog/next-js-storefront-food-ecommerce-restaurant-medusa-paystack/).

Medusa's [documentation](https://docs.medusajs.com/) provides you with hands-on knowledge to get you started and building in a matter of minutes.

_Get started with Medusa today. In case of any concerns, you can reach out to the Medusa [Discord](https://discord.gg/medusajs) community for further inquiries._