Commerce architecture
Platform selection, composability, search, and the system boundaries that make B2B complexity manageable.
Background
About
I build and write about the systems underneath modern B2B commerce: platforms, product data, search, integration, and the decisions that shape them.
Most of my work lives in the unglamorous middle of enterprise change: the pricing logic, catalog quality, integration seams, and operating tradeoffs that determine whether a commerce program becomes a capability or a very expensive deck.
I have spent most of my career inside B2B distribution and industrial commerce, where software has to accommodate negotiated pricing, deep assortments, messy ERP data, and organizations that cannot stop operating just because a transformation program says they should.
That perspective shapes both the client work and the writing here. I'm interested in technology that survives operational reality, not the simplified version that looks good in a vendor environment.
Focus
Product and pricing data
The data discipline behind catalogs, customer-specific pricing, enrichment, and the workflows that keep them usable.
Enterprise systems strategy
ERP boundaries, integration patterns, build-vs-buy tradeoffs, and the organizational realities around long-lived systems.
Applied AI
Practical uses of AI for classification, search, and operational leverage when the data is messy and the stakes are real.
How I work
I bias toward clarity, operating detail, and decisions that can survive contact with the business.
The throughline is straightforward: make the problem legible, make the tradeoffs explicit, and do not pretend B2C playbooks map cleanly onto distribution. Good architecture is partly technical, partly organizational, and mostly about reducing expensive ambiguity.
- Architecture over theater: focus on durable operating models, not launch-day optics.
- Data before decoration: better catalogs, pricing, and search matter more than polished demos.
- Practical AI: use it where it lowers real friction, not where it adds novelty.
Contact
Email is the best path: jason@jcapshaw.com. I'm also on LinkedIn.
For speaking and advisory work, the speaking page is the best summary of fit.