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What is Headless Commerce: A Complete Guide

The world of eCommerce evolves way faster than you can imagine. So what’s new in eCommerce? Headless commerce! 

Though it has been introduced quite some time back, its potential is being explored these days and the developers are getting seasoned with it and businesses are leaning more towards it. 

We thought of analyzing the ins and outs of headless commerce today. This blog will outline everything you need to know about it. Let’s get started. 

• What is Headless Commerce? 

Headless commerce is the practice of decoupling the frontend (also known as the presentation layer) from the product & order management system and shopping cart functionality on the backend (also referred to as the application layer). 

The traditional eCommerce model closely tied these two systems in a monolithic architecture. Therefore, any changes in the front end required updating the backend. Naturally, the updates were slower. 

Headless commerce architecture brings a revolution in eCommerce website development as it offers a platform via RESTful API that comprises a cloud-based infrastructure and a backend data model. As the platform is not knitted with the backend, content, products, payment gateways, and all other frontend features can be easily delivered on kiosk screens, smartwatches, and other IoT devices. 

• Difference between Traditional Commerce and Headless Commerce 

If you are still confused about the difference between traditional and headless eCommerce, this section will clear your doubts. 

1. Frontend Development 

In traditional eCommerce website design, frontend developers may face several constraints while designing the user interface. In order to make changes, they may need to spend a long time editing the code, database, and the front-end features. Developers can also be apprehensive of mistakenly preventing any future upgrade or voiding a warranty. 

Headless commerce gives a break from all that. The developers can create an engaging user experience from scratch that suits the business needs. They need not worry about modifying databases in the backend. All they need is to make an API call. This offers greater flexibility. 

2. Personalization 

Traditional platforms deliver a predefined experience to the customers and the administrators. Of course, there are several themes and plugins to customize the e-store, but that is limited in comparison to headless commerce. 

With headless commerce, the developers create user experience from scratch. Naturally, it renders greater control over the appearance and feel of the website. All you need is to engage an experienced and reliable website design company. The learned experts can take care of the rest. 

3. Hassle-Free Customization 

This is an extension of the earlier point. In traditional eCommerce, the developers often had to edit several layers of coding to make a customization. 

However, as the front and backends are decoupled in headless commerce, it opens a horizon of customization and the developers can make any change - from adding a new field to the customer account to implementing a custom checkout flow without any hassle. 

4. How Headless Commerce Works

Without getting into the technical nitty-gritty, here is a quick overview of how headless commerce works. A headless commerce system passes requests between the presentation (frontend) and application (backend) layers through API calls.  

For instance, once the users click the “shop now” button, the presentation layer or the frontend sends an API call to the backend or the application layer in order to complete the order. Consequently, the backend sends another API call to the frontend to display the confirmation of their order.

• Benefits of Headless Commerce

Ecommerce giants like Amazon leverage the power of headless commerce. As you can imagine, it has some advantages that you cannot overlook. Let’s reveal these ones by one: 

1. Omnichannel Shopping Experience 

Headless commerce enables you to deliver your product videos and other content to any channel available in the market. From Alex skills to refrigerators with screens - people can purchase anywhere and everywhere. Considering the rapid evolution of interactive digital signage, smart kiosks and other commerce-centric IoT devices, the omnichannel shopping experience is a matter that business owners cannot afford to overlook.

Also, you need not rearchitect the entire platform to publish across channels. Imagine the amount of time and money you are going to save! 

2. Seamless Integration 

Headless commerce solution operates with an API that paves the way for easier integration and communication. You can add your e-store to any new device and outreach to more customers in an effective way. And it takes only a few hours to integrate the eCommerce platform into a new device. 

You can also integrate IoT enabled elements into the headless commerce platform. Some of the examples may include smart cross-selling, proximity marketing, IoT based loyalty programmes, etc.

3. Long-Term Cost Savings

Initially, headless commerce may seem to be more expensive, but you need to look at the long run. You can add any and every frontend feature without impacting the backend. Also, you can offer a personalized user experience on multiple channels. It leads to greater chances of conversions. 

4. Remain Competitive 

Ecommerce trends are gradually changing and it’s time to leverage the trends to remain competitive. A stunning frontend with new-age features is a significant aspect of an e-store. 

Thanks to headless commerce platforms, you can easily deploy various rapid updates and innovative elements on your e-store without impacting the backend system. This speeds up the process. Naturally, it offers a competitive advantage. 

• Drawback of Headless Commerce 

The only drawback we can think of is that it has no frontend presentation layer at all. Therefore, the developers need to build everything from scratch - from the landing page to the product pages. 

However, this is not a drawback if you deeply consider it. It offers greater personalization and flexibility to the developers and enables them to create unique e-stores that resonate with the business niches.   

Headless Commerce Platforms 

• Magento 2
• BigCommerce 
• Shopify Plus 

Headless commerce allows you complete control across all the touchpoints to offer a cohesive customer experience. We hope our blog helped you to understand why headless commerce is the future of eCommerce. We would like to know your thoughts on it.

How to Build an App that Goes Viral

Building an app is easy, but how about ensuring that the app goes viral and drives thousands of downloads?

Overwhelming!

There are an estimated 2.2 million apps available in Apple App Store and 2.9 million apps in Google Play Store (source: Statista). With so many apps available, it’s difficult to drive downloads and keep people engaged. However, it is not impossible. With the right strategy in place, you can make your app go viral! Today, we will talk about just that.

How to Make Your App Go Viral:

A Guide Many often the concept of virality is associated only with marketing. We admit that marketing plays a key role in helping an app go viral but this is not the only component. The objective of virality should also power the app development process.

Build a Unique App

No matter how much you spend in marketing, it’s not possible to gain and retain your users if you are not offering something unique. For that a competitor analysis is crucial. Install your competitors’ apps and minutely note what they are offering.

Now, try to exceed those by offering something innovative. This will ensure that your users are getting something new from your app and thus the app is enhancing their convenience.

Not sure how to beat your competitors in the game? Engage professional mobile app development services and let the experts brainstorm innovative ideas.

Keep Your App Simple and Innovative

One of the major mistakes you can make while making your app unique is going overboard. Simplicity is the key to virality. If the users fail to understand how to use the app, they will uninstall it and opt for a simpler one.

Remember, the users are not here to appreciate hundreds of features that your app offers. They are here to execute their work. Let your app help them do it without any hassle.

No matter how much unique your app is, it should always be intuitive and simple to operate. Complex navigation is a big no. If you think some elements need a little elaboration, include them in the app onboarding process. Let the users try it hands-on so as to get a hang of it.

Let Your Users Spend Longer Time on Your App

The more a user spends time on your app, the more attached they become to the app. It will enable them to check various features the app is offering, browse the products/services, and these will be retained in their memory.

And as you can understand, the more attached they are with the app, the reliability of the app increases. Naturally, they will feel confident using the app and recommend the app to their acquaintances.

Here is an example of how popular apps increase the users’ time on the app. Say, Uber or Zomato - a cab booking and a food ordering app. They show the driver’s/delivery person’s journey to the destination on the inbuilt map in real-time. It would be enough for the users to know that the driver or the delivery person is on his way. However, monitoring the car movement on the app keeps them hooked to the app and they keep tracking “where and why did he stop? Which street he is taking?” and so on.

Push notification is yet another weapon to encourage people to interact with the app. Here is a study by Invesp. Sending mobile app push notifications can increase app engagement up to 88%. Further these can boost app retention rate by 3-10x. Leverage the power of push notification and boost your app engagement rate.

Rewards & Incentives

As you can see, we are gradually entering into the arena of digital marketing right with push notifications in the previous pointer. And by now, you must have understood that the distinction between app development and marketing is fading to the extent of being invisible.

Coming to the aspect of rewards and incentives, it’s common human psychology that users prefer to perform an action when they have a certain motivation.

Rewards can be given in different forms. It may include unlocking new features, winning badges for certain actions, temporary access to the premium version, and so on.

You can also reward people for inviting their acquaintances or converting for the first time. Rewards greatly stimulate necessary action.

Marketing Campaign

Create a buzz in the market before and after the app is released. The pre-release campaigns should include your app’s usability, benefits, and so on. You can use your social media platforms and your website for marketing pre-release campaigns.

Post-release campaigns may include user-generated content, rewards, and so on. All these will encourage more people to join the community and use your app.

You can engage professional digital marketing services to create innovative and creative campaigns for the app. Go beyond static images in favour of videos and animations. These will help the app go viral.

Way Forward

As you can see, you need to put some extra effort to make your app go viral. Implement these strategies and keep implementing these to get your desired results. Found the blog useful? Share your thoughts with us.

Google’s New Guidelines on Phrase and Broad Match Keywords

Keyword matching is an important aspect of search engine optimization. From exact match to phrase match - different types of keyword matching techniques are employed by the marketing experts. Recently, Google Ads has announced updates regarding the ways a query is matched to keywords. Let’s take a deeper dive into it.

Google’s Guidelines on Keywords

 

Earlier in 2021, Google announced that an exact match keyword (that precisely matches with the query string) will be preferred when the keyword is eligible to match. This is intended at reducing complexity. Now, Google has extended the rule for broad and phrase match keywords. After much discussion with the experts of digital marketing services, we have outlined the types of keywords that will be prioritized from now on.

Identical Keyword

If a query, say, “buy blue shirt for men” matches several broad match keywords you have used, say, “blue shirt for men”, “shop blue shirt for men”, and “buy blue shirt for men”; Google will prefer the identical keyword, i.e., “buy blue shirt for men”.

Exact Match Keyword

Following the previous example, exact match keywords will be prioritized over phrase and broad match keywords. In fact, if an exact match keyword is deemed similar or less relevant than broad match keywords, it can still be selected by Ad Rank.

Relevant Broad Match Keywords

If more than one broad match keywords are present, only the aptest broad match keywords taken from the suitable ad groups should be prioritized. Google Ad Rank will then decide which keywords to select among the narrow set of broad match keywords with equal relevance.

Here is an example cited by Google. Say, someone, searches for “fast sushi delivery near me”. On your account, you are running campaigns for a broad match keyword “food delivery” and “quick sushi delivery”. Now, the phrase match keyword will be selected since it is more relevant.

Keywords with Higher Ad Rank

If you have multiple phrase match or exact match keywords eligible in your account, but don’t have any eligible broad match keyword, the keyword with the highest rank will be selected.

Why is it Important

The natural language processing capacity that the BERT algorithm brings to keyword matching means that your ads get featured for the most relevant searches. Knowing how Google matches keywords will help you to save time and optimize your campaigns. The experts of PPC services highlight that you don’t need to use the same keyword in different match groups as broad match covers the same queries. And since all the matches are treated with the same priority by Google, it’s possible to optimize your resources to diverse directions.

Further, Google recommends grouping keywords into thematically coherent ad groups so that the ads serve from the ad group as expected. Here is the instance that Google cites: Say, your business offers food delivery and your most popular search categories are pizza delivery and sushi delivery. Here, Google recommends three ad groups so that you can customize your creatives and landing page: one for pizza delivery, another for sushi delivery, and a third for food delivery.

With this information in mind, check out how your campaigns are performing and optimize as required. Let us know your thoughts.

An App Suite for Item Order & Delivery Network Business

Factors Influencing Website Design & Maintenance Cost

 One of the most troublesome questions that comes to your mind while considering developing or revamping a website is “how much do I have to pay?”

And it’s a common concern. However, the worst mistake is to settle for a site that comes at a cheap price. A website is an important brand touchpoint and it plays a crucial role in evoking reliability among your audience. Therefore, you must pay attention to designing a user-friendly and engaging website even if it costs you a little more.

Now, as a professional website development company, it’s difficult to give a clear-cut answer to the question we started with - how much do you have to pay to build a website.

That’s because, several factors influence the cost of website design. This contributes to a custom pricing for each website. Again, when maintenance is involved, it’s further difficult to measure the pricing as it is a recurring cost.

Let’s take a look at the factors influencing the price of a website design and maintenance. We will also explain which costs are one-time and which ones are recurring. In the final segment, we will focus on an estimated website design cost for your project.

Without further ado, let’s dive in then.

Factors Influencing Website Design Cost

First, let’s check out the factors that will determine the cost of your website. Take a look.

1. Number of web pages

The cost of a website design increases with the increase in the number of web pages. For instance, an eCommerce website usually has more product pages than a small business website. Therefore, eCommerce website development services cost higher than regular CMS based website.

2. Technology Used

The use of technology is a determining factor for website cost. A dynamic web application built with PHP or Magento will surely cost higher than a static website built with WordPress. That’s because the developers have to put more effort while dealing with complex technology.

3. Features

The more features you add, the more you pay. For instance, a standard or basic website may include integrated social media, Google map, and contact form along with a mobile responsive layout. If you want to add image slider, newsletter subscription, blog, client testimonial, and other dynamic elements into your website, it will cost you more.

However, if you ask the experts, paying a little more for an appealing dynamic website design is always recommended. You are developing the site to attract the customers and win a competitive edge. Investing a little extra will readily pay you back by helping you to achieve your goal.

4. Varied Quotes

Each company has its own price chart. The quote will vary depending on whether you hire freelancers or an experienced website design company. The expertise of the company, the team size, location, and several other factors work contribute to it.

Not sure why location is a factor here? Well, web development price in the UK can be 3-4 times more than that in India for a similar quality work!

Cost Breakdown of Website Development & Maintenance

Here’s a step by step approach to estimate the cost associated with website development.

• Domain cost

The first step to crafting a website is to obtain a domain name. For this, you need a domain registrar like GoDaddy, Google, BlueHost, HostGator etc.

A premium domain will cost you higher but offer some extra facilities. You can register the domain every year or purchase it for two consecutive years.

Many professional domain registrars offer an integrated service where you can get a dashboard for managing databases, email accounts, hosting, and DNS.

• Hosting

The next task is to host your website so that it finds a place in the virtual realm. Hosting service providers will offer you space on the server at their custom quotes.

You can book a server on a yearly or monthly basis. Some choose VPS hosting plans for a secured web experience, some choose shared hosting plans while some are okay with dedicated hosting plans.

You can talk to the customer support team of any hosting service provider. They will help you to choose the right hosting plan for your website as per your requirement and budget.

We recommend you to provide a safe user experience at your website. Therefore, ensure to get an SSL certificate for your site. You can opt for it while choosing a hosting plan.

• Website Design

The cost of custom website design varies on different factors including the company quote, the design you choose, the number of web pages you require, and so on. This is usually a one-time cost but you can modify or revamp your website as the industry trends change. That will demand you to pay some more.

Here’s a serious consideration. There are some basic readymade designs that come for free or at a low cost. However, these template designs are not professional and don’t suit any serious business. Therefore, it’s better to get a custom website that fits your business goal and niche. Remember, your website must reflect your brand aesthetics.

• Content Management System (CMS)

Before talking about a CMS, let’s quickly define a static and a dynamic website. A static website has content that doesn’t change frequently. It doesn’t require a separate CMS. However, the content on the dynamic website changes and you need to include a CMS here. It’ll help you to change the content without disrupting the structure.

There are various CMS available on the web including WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, etc. You can also build a custom CMS to make your site more engaging.

• Content Writing

A website design is incomplete without content. You can also write the content for your site but if you want it to be more professional, user-engaging, and optimized for search engine, hiring content writers is a better idea.

Documents, write-ups, images, infographic, video - the professionals can create diverse content for your website.

• Search Engine Optimization

This is an optional step but crucial to driving more visibility and web traffic. Engage professional SEO services to earn valuable backlinks, enhance your site’s rank on the search engine, increase brand awareness, and draw relevant audience to your site. Various companies offer distinct quotes for SEO services. Pick the right package as per your business requirement.

Remember, SEO is a long-term process and you need to invest in it for some time to get noticeable results. Trust us when we say, it’s worth your money, time, and effort.

• Database

A website is a repository of data and it’s increasing every moment. You need an efficient mechanism to deal with it. And a database management system is what you need at this hour. It can facilitate some interesting additions to the site.

Depending on the extent of integration, its cost will vary.

• Maintenance

If you want your site to feature a top-notch performance all the time, you need to engage a professional maintenance service. You can either hire a regular or on-demand maintenance as per your budget or requirement. The professionals will fix the bugs, slow loading time, add different features, and more according to your necessity.

Estimating Website Design Price

As you can understand, website design price depends on diverse factors. That’s the best part about custom web development. It allows you to pay for just what you want. Therefore, it’s always better to engage a custom web design service instead of a template-based one.

The price range of website design significantly varies from one company to another. You can get an idea of it in this link. You can find three packages here - Starter, Best Buy, and Premium. Pick the right package as per your budget and requirement. Also, the prices outlined here are the starting ranges. You can further customize the site with more features.

Got any query? Feel free to comment below.