When you think about buying something like a dress what comes to your mind first?
1. Go to the market and check different stores and see if you like something or
2. Just take your mobile or laptop out and start searching
I think that the majority of people will go for the second option. The first option might be in the game if you had a lot of time and you were living in the 20th century.
Am I right or what?
Why go the extra mile when you can shop from anywhere in the world with your mobile phone while sipping coffee and watching Netflix? This is how much the internet and IoT have changed our lives and our perspective on how to approach our everyday tasks.
The change didn’t stop at ecommerce; it kept on going from legacy ecommerce models to omnichannel and the pace of the change is so much that ecommerce has lost its head and not as a figure of speech. “Headless Commerce” the buzzword that everyone is talking about is not a figure of speech but the latest model of ecommerce. So, the question that comes to the minds of readers who are unfamiliar with the term like me before I researched it is…
What is Headless Commerce?
Headless commerce is a new model of ecommerce that works by decoupling the front-end and back-end of an ecommerce website. Interesting.. right?
In traditional ecommerce the application and presentation layer are designed simultaneously with respect to each other. But not in headless commerce where both are designed separately and then integrated together to complete an ecommerce website.
This model is especially ideal for contextual ecommerce. It is a combination of content and ecommerce. Shopify Services include new integrations for headless commerce that show that all the top-notch ecommerce platforms are preparing and offering services for this new and more flexible model of ecommerce. At the end of last year, Bigcommerce offered integrations for WordPress allowing blog sites of WordPress to sell products using BigCommerce services.
More and more people are migrating to these platforms with the help of ecommerce agencies that offer cart to cart migration services because of the flexibility and ease that headless commerce offers.
What are the benefits of using Headless Commerce?
The benefits of using headless commerce include flexibility, speed, personalization, customization, ease of scaling, and access to the true omnichannel experience that customers keep asking for.
Flexibility:
Your executive asks you to make some changes in the front end while keeping the back end intact and unchanged. It will be a hectic task, no doubt. But what if the back end and front end are decoupled, like in the headless commerce? It will be easy.
This model brings flexibility to the process of ecommerce development. Ecommerce is changing and as sales keep on increasing it is becoming a daily job to make new changes to the website. With the help of headless commerce that can be easily achieved without disrupting the flow of the entire website especially the back end that is hard to manipulate. So if you are going to launch a new campaign for your ecommerce business you won’t have to go through the ordeal that traditional websites face.
Speed:
Speed is everything in modern times because we don’t have time. Time is money which makes speed inevitable for success in a competitive environment, especially in ecommerce. The process of manipulating and updating the legacy ecommerce models require very complex customization as the back and front ends are working very closely so it is slow and lethargic. In headless commerce, you are free of these constraints which mean you can work more freely and quickly on the changes.
The application layer and the presentation layer of the architecture are decoupled and working through API integrations so you can add features and content to the website hastily that will keep you ahead of the competition.
Personalization:
Customers are getting more sensitive and impatient. A word that keeps banging on every ecommerce vendor’s head is personalization. It gets very difficult to attain personalization in legacy ecommerce environments. The separation of presentation and application layer from each other allows developers and vendors to experiment with freedom in search to achieve personalization. Developers can now easily add a new feature to the ecommerce website test their productivity and replace them with even better ones when new updated versions are available all without the fear of disturbing the adjacent layer. This experimentation is sure to lead to a website with a higher personalized ecommerce experience for online customers.
Ecommerce customers have new and evolving requirements and it’s nearly impossible for a single ecommerce platform to provide all these services so the use of third-party integrations is inevitable for a successful ecommerce business. But these integrations can become a tiresome job to do. For vendors that are using a headless approach, it is comparatively more convenient. So, they are more likely to achieve customer trust through their personalized website.
Scaling:
Scaling is one of the most important aspects of an ecommerce or any business for that matter.
I mean who doesn’t want their business to go to the next level? NO ONE!
That is why it is very important to keep in mind the scaling of your business when designing a business, especially ecommerce business.
With traditional ecommerce business models, it gets pretty difficult for ecommerce vendors to scale their business as it requires a lot of changes to the catalog as well as the interface while keeping the current systems running.
And let me tell you, it is hard!
When is it convenient? That’s right when you are using a headless commerce approach. You can scale your website quickly and easily with this approach. It allows you to add and upgrade new features and products easily making it easy for the ecommerce vendors to take your website to the next level.
Drawbacks of Headless Commerce approach:
The major drawback of headless commerce in my view is finance. It costs more to ecommerce vendors to acquire two different layers. The isolation of two-layer offers great flexibility and convenience to design and develop but it comes at a comparatively high price.
Conclusion:
It is not a surprise that ecommerce world is changing. Headless commerce is the evolved form of ecommerce. The worst thing for any business is being rigid and avoid taking risks. So, keep up with the changes and take calculated risks or go home!
