Module: Commerce content modeling

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Choose a product storage strategy

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The most critical decision in modeling commerce products is where to store them: in the Content hub as reusable content or as pages in a website channel. This decision impacts how editors manage products and how your content scales across channels.

The Content modeling MCP server selected the content modeling approach based on the provided details, but it’s worth reviewing the pros and cons of each approach.

Atomic content model approach: Products as reusable content

Storing commerce-specific content in the* Content hub* is the recommended approach for modeling commerce solutions in Xperience. This approach ensures commerce content items are reusable and independent of any specific channels or presentation contexts. Editors create products once and then reference them across multiple channels, such as websites, mobile apps, email campaigns, or third-party marketplaces, using dedicated wrappers.

This approach treats products as pure data that editors can use to create different experiences. For example, a dog food product exists as structured data that a website, mobile app, and any other programs that consume your APIs can access and display as needed.

Page-based content model approach: Products as pages

In this model, products are treated as webpage content types within a specific website channel. Each product has its own URL and is part of the website’s content tree. Editors manage products directly within the website where they are displayed. Editors can reuse data stored in a content type’s structured fields across the website or email channels, while data stored with widgets is closely tied to the presentation layer.

This approach prioritizes a web-first mindset and focuse on product presentation within the website. For example, a dog food product page includes a URL and SEO settings. The product data (both structured and unstructured) is displayed through a static view and Page Builder components that editors arrange to create the optimal product detail page.

When to use each approach

Use Content hub when:

Use Website channel when:
  • Products must be displayed across multiple channels, such as websites, mobile apps, and marketplaces.
  • You’re building headless or API-first commerce experiences.
  • You want centralized product management separate from presentation concerns.
  • Your product data needs to integrate with external e-commerce platforms or PIMs.
  • You have multiple websites or brands sharing the same product catalog.
  • Content reuse and avoiding duplication are a priority.
  • Your commerce implementation is focused on a single website.
  • Individual SEO control per product page is critical.
  • Editors need to customize the presentation and layout of each product page using Page Builder.
  • Your products don’t need to appear in other channels.
  • You want editors to manage products in the same interface where they manage other website content.
  • Simpler editor workflows are prioritized over multi-channel flexibility.

For Pawsome Pets, we’ll use the Content hub approach because:

  • The team plans to syndicate product data to mobile apps, marketplace channels and other platforms.
  • Product data needs to be accessible via API for third-party integrations.
  • Centralized product management supports their expanding channel strategy.
  • Content reuse ensures efficient scaling as the business grows.

Customize Xperience to auto-create page wrappers or page proxies

Many successful commerce implementations adopt a semi-hybrid approach that uses a unifying pattern: products stored in the Content hub with automatically generated product wrapper pages in the website channel. Or, they store data in website pages, but connect them with Content hub capabilities.

Your developers then implement logic that automatically generates a corresponding:

  • Product page (in atomic content model ) in the website channel for each product, pulling data from the Content hub product and combining it with channel-specific SEO, OpenGraph and other page-specific fields and presentation elements (e.g., in a page template).
  • Page proxy in page-based content model in the Content hub for each product page helps the page content to participate in Content hub workflows, such as filtering or displaying using smart folders across related content.

Although this approach requires more upfront development and customization, t is ideal for projects relying on multi-channel content reuse and individual product URLs.

Review the core product data modeled by the MCP server

With Pawsome Pets products stored in the Content hub, the next step is designing the core Product SKU content type. This inovolves identifying the fields required for every product, regardless of category or type. These fields are then organized using reusable field schema to prevent duplication and optimize data queries.

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