Arjun Solanki
In its most basic form, headless commerce is the separation of the frontend and backend of an ecommerce platform. As an eCommerce solution, the architecture enables brands to create whatever they want, whenever they want. Due to the independence of these two settings, developers and business owners can make data more portable and reuse information for a certain customer category or sales channel. As a result, a developer can change the frontend while leaving the backend alone and vice versa. Above all, it enables an ecommerce development company to improve the consumer experience through the use of APIs (application programming interfaces). Headless commerce enables the organisation to provide API-driven experiences to clients via DXP, CMS, device, application or custom frontend, using BigCommerce as the commerce engine.
Table of Contents
Headless Commerce vs. Traditional Ecommerce
- Individualisation and Customisation
Headless Commerce: Unlike traditional commerce platforms, headless commerce allows developers to control both admin and consumer user experiences.
Traditional eCommerce: Despite providing administrative and consumer users with predefined experiences, these platforms lack customisation or personalisation capabilities.
- Adaptability and Flexibility
Headless Commerce: Because headless commerce has already decoupled the frontend and backend, there are several customisation choices available. To make changes, all you need is a front-end developer.
Traditional eCommerce: The interface is tightly connected with the backend coding and infrastructure of traditional solutions, allowing limited room for customisation.
Why Is Headless Commerce Increasingly Popular?
Two major aspects contribute to the popularity of headless commerce. Websites relied largely on desktop computers when headless commerce first hit the market. As a result, market solutions were full-stack, including the website frontend and backend pairs. The path to purchase has extended to incorporate mobile traffic and a complex matrix of buyer touchpoints that need flexibility, which is difficult for full-stack solutions to supply due to the system’s integrated frontend and backend.
Second, all market actors nowadays want to enter the world of ecommerce. Because there is already so much content on the site, building a commerce engine and connecting it to the existing content management system is far easier than designing a brand new website and integrating all of its previous content into it.
To understand its popularity further you may reach out to a reputed ecommerce development company.
The Advantages of Headless CMS
- Experiences with faster editing
Architectures do not have to waste resources on content rendering and editing when employing a headless CMS. A headless CMS enables the user to avoid the complexities associated with dealing with the rendering side of operations.
- Managing Content Across Multiple Channels
Because headless material is not tied to a particular presentation concern, such as a website, it allows access to find an audience across numerous channels. Headless CMS can handle content for both websites and applications and internal/admin content can be managed on a single platform to get added value.
- Developer Adaptability
The APIs are used to offer headless content, allowing developers to choose between hybrid, standard and headless frontend tooling. The developer has the freedom to switch from Ruby or PHP to Javascript. It also enables the developer to swap out stack components or frameworks without affecting the CMS.
- Scaling is simpler
Headless CMSs are far more scalable than traditional CMSs. For example, if the backend is experiencing performance or maintenance challenges, the team may handle the website environment without failures, performance issues or downtime.
- Increased Security
Headless content is not aligned with the presentation layer; it has a smaller attack surface area. A headless CMS is an excellent solution for enterprises developing web platforms and services to achieve and maintain best practices environments with the greatest levels of security and integrity. CMS improves software design and security since internal access to the CMS remains within the firm.
Avail ecommerce development services today to know more on the same.
What Is the Definition of Headless Commerce Architecture?
Headless architecture entails encapsulating all business logic and operations in APIs that are supported by specialised backends and made public. Any front-end channel can integrate with these APIs to provide the required customer experience.
It gives you access to ‘best of breed’ platforms run by professionals in respective fields (for example, Commerce, CMS, Search, Payment, Customers, PIM and Media management). Instead of leveraging your commerce or CMS platform’s front-end technology, the headless architecture allows you to choose how you want to design your front-end for your sales channels.
Headless Architecture Varieties
Headless solutions are classified into three broad groups based on their back-end architecture. One can either design a microservice-based back end or integrate a platform such as CMS or ecommerce.
- Based on an API-powered ecommerce platform
This option is excellent for a company that wants more UI design flexibility while keeping the business logic of the business website the same. Businesses can gain access to pre-built ecommerce features by utilising this architecture type. Furthermore, businesses can save money on the expense of back-end development.
The following are the primary ecommerce characteristics that a company can obtain:
- Catalogue of products
- Online retailing
- Product content management
- Online payment and checkout functionality
- Order management at the entry-level
- Sales performance management.
- Using an API-driven CMS
If the company decides to:
- Create a content-rich website (Soft-sell marketing)
- A great CMS-based website requires an ecommerce component
The major ecommerce capabilities that a company can obtain are:
- Built-in SEO tools
- Templates for configuring content
- Digital asset administration
- Content distribution via multiple channels
- Using Microservices
- Alignment of current business capabilities is built in
- They were deployed and developed independently of one another
- Testing, design and deployment are all completed quickly
Headless Commerce eCommerce’s Future
Due to the widening gap between frontend & backend many stores are embracing the headless commerce strategy. By eliminating the traditional practices of packaging a commerce solution with a fully integrated storefront, a headless commerce solution becomes a collection of backend services that any frontend solution can use. This enables businesses to create their storefront UI independently of the backend system and apps, resulting in an excellent client experience.
Arjun Solanki is a Business Growth Strategist at a Leading Software Development Company USA. He has experience in developing and executing digital strategies for large global brands in a variety of business verticals. Apart from working on a long-lasting relationship with customers and boosting business revenue, he is also interested in sharing my knowledge on various technologies and its influence on businesses through effective blog posts and article writing.