Exploring Multi-Tenant eCommerce with Headless Architecture – Best Practices?

[vihanrichard]

Hi devs,
I’m currently in the planning phase of developing a multi-tenant eCommerce platform and am leaning toward a headless eCommerce architecture to ensure long-term scalability, flexibility, and modular control. The idea is to support multiple vendors or brands under one umbrella system while isolating data, assets, and customization options for each tenant.
At the backend, I’m considering stacks like Laravel with REST or GraphQL APIs, combined with Vue.js or React for the frontend. I’ve also been exploring the Jamstack route using tools like Strapi, Payload CMS, or even Shopify Hydrogen in certain scenarios. The goal is to have dynamic storefronts for tenants with central logic management—especially helpful for businesses expanding across different regions or verticals.
That said, a few challenges are already surfacing, and I’d love some real-world insights on:

• Tenant-specific routing: How are you handling clean, customizable URLs (e.g., brand1.store.com, brand2.store.com) and ensuring tenant-level middleware?
  
• Asset segregation: What’s your approach for uploading, storing, and serving per-tenant media assets in a scalable way?
  
• Custom theming: How do you allow frontend theming without duplicating core logic, especially in a headless setup?
  
• Authentication strategy: Any suggestions on tenant-aware authentication and authorization patterns? Is tenancy handled at middleware or controller level in your case?
  
• Database design: What’s worked better for you—single database with tenant_id filters, or completely separate databases per tenant?
  

If you’ve built or currently manage a multi-tenant eCommerce platform—especially one with a headless front-end—I’d really appreciate hearing about your experience. Pain points, tooling recommendations, or even lessons learned (especially around CI/CD, caching, and data isolation) would be incredibly helpful.
Looking forward to your insights, especially from those working with Laravel, Node.js, or other open-source frameworks in this space.
Thanks in advance!