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.

Ultimate Checklist for Responsive Website Design

The buzz of responsive website design had already started some time back, but has reached its zenith this year.

The traditional way of designing a site for desktop and then making it work on mobile (or other) devices is simply not working anymore.

The bottom line is, and we cannot stress this enough, smart device-first is the ONLY way to go.

Wondering why? Because almost half of the web traffic is generated through a mobile platform (source: Search Engine Watch)!

Leveraging such a wide audience can produce a great impact on your business. But for that, you need to have a clear insight into making a responsive web design.

Of course, you can seek assistance from the experts at any website design company, nevertheless, you should do your homework first.

So, let’s start from the basics.

 

What is a Responsive Web Design - An Overview

Once upon a time, responsive web design used to suggest mobile-friendly websites only. But with the advancement of technology, the term received a greater connotation. Now, it indicates the sites that can be accessed on any smart device.

A smart device can be as small as a watch or as big as a TV. The responsive websites can easily adjust to the specifications of multiple smart devices and remain equally functional and appealing across any device platform.

So, businesses need to ensure their sites look presentable and navigable across various smart devices, browsers, and operating systems.

But the real problem is how would you understand whether your site is working across devices?

No worry! We got you covered. Here is the ultimate checklist for a responsive website.

1. Run a Thorough Visual Testing
The images and texts should be perfectly aligned. Ensure that the content doesn’t exceed the edges of the screen.

If some part of the content is less important, you may choose to keep it “out-of-sight” on small devices. However, make sure the important part of the content remains visible across all platforms.

2. Mind the Typography

The typography must be compatible with varied platforms. The content is the heart of a website and should be readable and presentable across devices.

3. Test the Site on Multiple Devices and Browsers

This is a crucial part. Before your site goes live, it’s important to check its availability across browsers and devices. It will give you a clear insight into how the users can access your site.

Enhancing the User-Experience (UX) is central to a business. If you find any technical glitch while operating the site, you need to fix the issue ASAP.

4. Assess Traffic Data
Avail mobile and web traffic data from Google Analytics. Here you will learn which mobile devices and browsers are mostly used by the visitors to access your site. Now check how your site looks on these devices and browsers.

5. Check the Loading Speed
Do you know that 47% of people won’t wait for a page to load for more than 3 seconds! So, optimize your site loading speed if you don’t want to increase the bounce rate.

Compress large resources to display them appropriately on smaller devices. However, ensure that the quality is not reduced. You may also boost the site’s performance by using cache data.

6. Ensure Smooth Navigation for the Site 

The navigation element must not overlap the edges of the screen. You may use the hamburger menu icon for hidden navigation. Such an intuitive interface can enables visitors to easily navigate through the website.


7. Examine Interactivity

Various control instruments like keyboard, stylus, mouse, and even fingertips are used while interacting with devices. Keep an eye on the accessibility and responsiveness of your site through these control means.

8. Review the Site Pop-ups

You should check whether the inline pop-ups and browser window pop-ups are responsive.

Now that you have learnt analyse your site’s responsiveness, let’s dig deeper.

In the next passage, we will explore the consistency in design assets. Your brand must maintain consistency in design across various media platforms. This is a crucial element in responsive web design.

Why?

Let’s explain it with an example. The moment you hear “Nike”, ”Apple”, or “Coca-Cola”; immediately you can visualize the logos of these brands, right? This is the power of memorable, strong, and consistent designs.

The design assets must look consistent across various platforms even after resizing or scaling. From icons to typography, colours to font - every aesthetic element of your site come under this category.

To avoid a negative brand impression, carefully test the following:

Fonts

Some fonts are likely to look uneven or clumsy when they are scaled up or down, or viewed on different browsers and devices.

For instance, Mac OS can properly set font-weight, whereas Windows cannot. Again, the fonts may appear to be somewhat slimmer on Safari as compared to Chrome.

So make sure to test fonts and evaluate them on the basis of the above-stated parameters.

Media Files and Colour

Make sure that different versions of an image are compatible with multiple browsers, viewport and device resolution.

You may use the Chrome Developer tools to check if the images can adversely affect the performance of the website. 

Also, identify if there are colour inconsistencies and fix them. For a better understanding, you may take a look at the importance of colour theory in website designs.

Code

Here’s a basic checklist to support you in the code-testing procedure:

-Check if several browsers support a particular JS, HTML, or CSS property.

-Look for any visual discrepancies after writing the codes. Pay proper attention to the following:

• Spacing - The elements or content must not run over each other.
• Alignment - Ensure that the dynamic elements are aligned properly.
• Layout - Check if the entire layout is compatible with various sizes of the viewport.
• Horizontal Scroll - Look for the long links that make horizontal scrolling mandatory on the small-sized screens. These may affect the readability and user experience. Also, test text legibility on different browsers and viewport.
• Adjustable Format - Make sure to adjust the site elements on the basis of the viewport size. Check if the elements can be easily made to hide, appear, or get re-sized.
• Responsive Image - The images should adequately fit within their allotted spaces. Optimize the CSS and JS images; compress or minimize them without affecting quality.

Note that several factors including the browser engine, display resolution, and GPU play a significant role in determining how the end-users perceive the site. So, if you are not much tech-savvy, it’s better to consult a reputed website development company.

Conclusion

Responsive web design needs to be updated regularly depending on the technological developments. Continue to test your site for responsiveness on various devices, browsers, and operating systems.

Remember, an eye-opening survey by Infront reveals that about 94% of people won’t rely on a website if it has poor design and accessibility!

So, put your best efforts to set the first impression. And for any little help, we are always there!