By Sam Ranieri, CEO at Reach
For years, all-in-one platforms have been the default answer to the complexity of running a retail or SaaS business. One vendor, one contract, one system. Simple – or so the promise went.
The reality, it turns out, looks very different.
According to Reach’s latest research, nearly half of retailers say they don’t fully control their own tech infrastructure. And 68% believe they would grow faster if they weren’t locked into an all-in-one platform. That’s not a fringe complaint. That’s the majority of the market signalling that something is fundamentally broken.
Simplicity was an illusion. The complexity never disappeared. It just moved somewhere harder to see: into hidden costs, into fragile workarounds, into tech debt that quietly compounds over time. And, most critically, into missed opportunities – markets not entered, experiences not optimised, growth that never materialised because the system couldn’t keep up.
In fairness, the original pitch was compelling: hand off the complexity to a one-stop shop and get back to running your business. It made sense, of course it did – that’s why so many merchants bought in.
The problem runs deeper than most leaders realise. While 72% of executive management say all-in-one platforms have accelerated innovation, 58% of project managers – the people living with these systems day to day – say they have limited, dictated, or prevented it entirely.
For merchants operating in today’s world, change is constant. Whether it’s convoluted tax structures, complex payment methods or new compliance hurdles, every single country brings a different puzzle for businesses to overcome. Couple this together with the ever-moving expectations of customers too – it’s now essential for merchants to respond and adapt quickly.
Legacy technology was built for a stable world
The deeper issue isn’t that these platforms were badly designed. It’s that they were designed for a different moment, when markets were stable, when one approach could fit most merchants, when simplicity was actually deliverable.
That world is gone. The environment merchants are navigating today is one of constant, compounding change. Tariffs shift overnight and redraw the economics of entire markets. AI is reshaping how merchants acquire customers, personalise experiences, and defend against fraud, all at the same time. Regulatory requirements are multiplying across every market businesses want to enter.
What all of these forces share is that they demand adaptability. The ability to move fast, change direction, respond in real time. Not file a support request with a platform vendor and wait. And yet most businesses aren’t leaving. They’re staying because leaving feels harder than staying stuck.
The invisible costs stopping growth
It’s worth noting that some of the lock-in costs for merchants are visible on the invoices they receive every month. Our research found 73% of all-in-one platform users have faced hidden costs averaging 35% above the original price. That’s frustrating, but it’s the tip of the iceberg.
What we have to weigh up is what’s not showing up on the balance sheet. The financial price being paid is feasibly stopping a business from expanding into a new market, investing in their marketing, hiring new talent or developing their product. In today’s environment, the merchants under the most strain aren’t always those facing the toughest external pressures. They’re the ones trapped in infrastructure that makes speed, and therefore growth, impossible.
Today’s merchants need flexibility and resilience
The fundamental change we need is a different relationship between merchants and technology. Instead of settling for the constraints of all-in-one platforms, merchants will increasingly be asking this key question: can your infrastructure support what I need to do?
And this is the right question – and where providers need to respond and act. The next generation of commerce infrastructure needs to feel invisible. It should handle the complexity of selling globally – tax, compliance, fraud, local payments – without the merchant ever having to think about it. Right now, infrastructure is a constraint. It dictates what merchants can do, where they can go, how fast they can get there. That has to flip.
The merchants we talk to aren’t asking for a better all-in-one platform. They’re asking for something that fits around how they already operate, that grows with them rather than something they have to grow around. And it’s a fair request – because the businesses that win globally in the next era won’t be the ones with the biggest budgets. It will be those that can move fastest.
