Friday, November 19, 2021

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.