What is an important best practice when extending SFCC functionalities?

When extending functionalities in Salesforce Commerce Cloud (SFCC), utilizing overrides in custom cartridges is considered an essential best practice. This approach allows developers to enhance or modify the behavior of existing core functionality without directly altering the core cartridge code. By creating custom cartridges and utilizing overrides, developers can maintain the integrity of the core system, ensuring that future updates to SFCC do not disrupt custom functionalities.

This method promotes modularity and maintainability. It keeps customizations organized in separate cartridges, which makes it easier to manage changes, troubleshoot issues, and apply updates. It also facilitates collaboration among developers, as the separation of custom logic from the core system reduces the risk of incompatibility and makes it clearer where custom code is implemented.

On the other hand, directly modifying core cartridge code can lead to significant complications, such as difficulties in maintaining and upgrading systems since any changes might be overwritten with updates. Relying solely on out-of-the-box features can limit a store's capabilities and reduce its competitiveness in the market, while creating separate instances for every customization can lead to resource inefficiency and increased complexity in management and deployment processes. Therefore, using overrides in custom cartridges strikes an effective balance between flexibility and stability in extending SFCC functionalities.