Headless Commerce: An ultimate guide to the growing trend

Introduction

E-commerce is currently on the rise! The world of online shopping proceeds to change dramatically. E-commerce is becoming more widespread as the number of people preferring to buy things online is growing increasingly.
E-commerce is all about flexibility, convenience, and efficiency. Just think of it – you can shop using nothing but your smartphone while lying on a couch. And you don’t even need to leave the comfort of your home! 

The concept of headless commerce

So what does headless commerce have to do with online shopping and why is it getting so popular right now? Let’s figure out all the details together!

Though the term “headless commerce” might sound quite abstract, its definition is much simpler than it might first seem.

Basically, the concept of headless e-commerce lies in separating the front end from the back end in e-commerce experiences. Such platforms leverage the power and agility of APIs thus delivering and managing content without a connected front-end layer. API which stands for application program interface is essential for headless commerce’s overall success. It is a connection between the front end and back end that transfers information between the two in real-time.

As the content isn’t tied down to a website’s other components, greater flexibility is achieved. In other words, the front end and back end can function more independently thus enabling online storefronts customization for a better buying journey, without impacting the back end. It’s no wonder headless commerce is becoming a top setup for businesses ranging in scale. 

According to Statista, the e-commerce market is anticipated to grow to $1.3 trillion between 2022 and 2025. This means it’s getting highly competitive. Coping with all the challenges, remaining relevant, and meeting ever-changing customer expectations is quite a challenge now. That is why businesses need to harness creative, omnichannel experiences to attract more shoppers, convert random visitors into dedicated fans, and keep them interested. And that’s exactly where headless commerce comes into play! With so much freedom, you can create the most remarkable online shopping experiences ever! This innovative approach to e-commerce opens up almost endless possibilities for customization, speeds up time-to-market, and helps to achieve enriched and differentiated customer experience.

Here are a few words about headless commerce architecture. We can compare it to LEGO. It takes putting together loosely coupled elements to construct streamlined systems. It’s easy to add, remove, or alter particular services as per your requirements. 

The ability to choose the best way to build a frontend layer allows for working on web performance, mobile optimization, and customer experience without the help of a developer team. 

In traditional e-commerce, in contrast, any changes made to the back end must also be done to the front end as they’re tied to each other.

You might be confused now with the two concepts. So take a closer look at the fundamental difference between traditional and headless commerce. What are the distinctive features? Which option is better? How to choose the best approach? Below, find all the answers you need. 

Headless commerce VS Traditional commerce

In the most general sense, a headless architecture provides more tools for reaching a growing base of customers if compared to a traditional e-commerce platform that is also referred to as a monolithic, legacy, or all-in-one platform.

Traditional commerce has been ruling for decades but now it seems to be stepping aside making room for an advanced headless approach.

As an opposite to headless commerce, the concept of traditional commerce lies in the front end and back end tightly connected. This gives much fewer opportunities for customization solutions as any UI change requires back-end adjustment. 

Headless commerce brings in endless design capabilities, therefore, making seamless and hassle-free customer experiences possible. Additionally, it ensures easy third-party provider integration.

Traditional commerce has several significant disadvantages against the headless approach. The most critical drawbacks include limited design capabilities, expensive and time-consuming updates, less space for customization, and pre-defined UX.

There are a lot of minor points contrasting the two approaches applied to e-commerce. However, we’ve outlined several key differences you should be aware of.

• Traditional e-commerce is easier to set up but customization takes some time. Headless e-commerce is a bit more complex and requires building the entire front end from scratch. However, there are greater customization opportunities and design flexibility.

• Traditional commerce involves working with a template that is connected directly to the back end. This imposes certain limitations but makes development easier. Headless solutions are fully customizable and give a wide space for flexibility. For example, new technologies can be quickly implemented without any trouble.

• Traditional e-commerce requires less tech knowledge as compared to headless e-commerce. 

The benefits of headless commerce

Legacy systems issues, old-fashioned tech stacks, lack of agility, and dependencies on one provider are what merchants have been dealing with lately. As e-commerce keeps evolving at a frantic pace, the good old “all-in-one” approach represented by monolithic platforms is becoming left behind with the headless approach coming as the main game changer. Moreover, it breaks into with several great benefits. The best thing about it? A headless approach positions you to be wherever commerce and advanced technologies lead.

Referring to the Forecast 2022-2032, the headless commerce market size is expected to reach $5,528.5 million by 2032 thus growing at a 22.1% CAGR over the next decade.

Now it’s high time we went down to details and explore the most significant rewards that headless commerce gives:

Omnichannel possibilities 

Meeting omnichannel expectations is crucial for ensuring excellent customer experience. This, in turn, requires a good deal of flexibility both on the organizational and tech levels that is complicated or sometimes completely impossible with an outdated tech stack. 

The headless design allows for a more exploratory shopping experience by allowing consumers to make purchases across a variety of digital channels. 

Enhanced flexibility and agility

With headless software, it’s much easier to keep up with ever-changing customer preferences. There is enough room for experiments and innovations. The cutting-edge commerce architecture also eliminates boundaries to the store’s internationalization while including multi-currency and multi-language options. 

Developers have the freedom to make use of any programming language or technology stack they want to build the front end. A modular development process means front-end and back-end teams working independently and therefore not affecting each other’s work.

Introducing updates with a conventional e-commerce platform is quite time-consuming while headless solutions ensure agility to quickly and frequently make changes to the front end. 

This results in the accelerated implementation of new features, a highly efficient workflow, and faster time to market.

Customization and personalization

With a headless platform, altering the content layer is simple and safe. Due to customer information centralization, retailers can provide completely personalized experiences to users based on their previous purchases, the targeted ad campaign, and other important factors.

Having access to valuable customer information, merchants customize product recommendations and promotions and browse choices for a particular channel to offer more effectively and boost conversion rates. 

Facilitated integrations

Need to link several tools via an API? Headless solutions make it possible. APIs facilitate seamless data transfers and connections while making software systems communication straightforward.

Smooth integration of key third-party technologies, like chatbots, voice assistants, and artificial intelligence, leads to an extremely personalized customer experience and better alignment with the brand’s identity.

Scalability and improved performance

Headless commerce allows for scalable systems, as changes made to the front end do not impact the back-end functionality. What does this mean? Websites can be easily scaled without disrupting core commerce operations. 

And there’s much more to it! Headless commerce takes website performance to an entirely new level by preventing delays and fastening page loading times. And page speed is a factor of great importance. You only have a few seconds to keep a random visitor’s attention once they land on your website. Once it performs slowly, users will abandon it and move on to the next one. After all, nowadays they have an extensive range of options. 

Skilled conducted an analysis and revealed the following user expectations in terms of load times: 

• 79% of customers who run into any kind of performance issues on your website are less likely to come back again. 
• 64% of smartphone users expect a website to load in 4 seconds or less. 
• 47% of online shoppers expect web pages to load in 2 seconds or less.

Unlike headless platforms, traditional e-commerce solutions do not prioritize high speed and take much longer to load. Do you know how detrimentally slow performance can impact your bottom line?

A one-second delay in page load time turns out in:

• 11% fewer page views
• 16% decrease in customer satisfaction
• 7% loss in conversions

This is the case when a one-second difference does make sense! The ability to switch between pages at lightning speeds is another weighty advantage of headless commerce. 

Challenges and drawbacks

However, going headless is not a piece of cake. Should you make such a big decision, you must be aware of the challenges you’re likely to face in the process of implementation. But don’t get anxious – they’re solvable yet you have to be well-informed. Check out the key hurdles right here.

Complex implementation

The very first thing you should consider is that headless commerce is usually more complex than traditional e-commerce platforms. Various systems integration comes with certain complexities as well as maintaining a secure, reliable, and compliant environment, customizing the user interface, and setting up the backend services. 

Resource-consuming process

Making such significant alterations requires a considerable budget. Front-end tools are frequently excluded from headless commerce platforms. This means developing and deploying a custom front end is possible with lots of necessary resources beyond the cost of the chosen headless commerce solution.

Fragmented user experience

Headless commerce is all about the front end and back end functioning separately. That’s why making sure the two work together seamlessly is crucial for a consistent user experience across all channels.

Security

This is a topical concern since every e-commerce business deals with a certain amount of data so privacy must always be ensured. Headless solutions can be vulnerable to security risks because they are not built on a single platform. To mitigate the risks, B2B companies should take the necessary measures for maximum security and safety. 

How to get started with headless commerce

Before you get started with headless commerce, choose the optimal approach. Basically, there are two ways to go headless:

1. Full re-platforming means building a headless commerce architecture from scratch
2. Gradual frontend-first migration 

The first method is complex, more time-consuming, and pricey as it involves full re-platforming and exchanging the entire legacy system with a new headless commerce stack. The following solutions must be introduced: 

• Frontend as a Service
• eCommerce platform
• headless CMS
• search solution
• payment solution
• other third-party tools

As for the step-by-step method, which starts with the front end, it is much simpler, faster, cost-effective, and takes less effort to complete. In this case, you can enjoy the perks of headless commerce immediately without dumping your current legacy software. There’s no need to build a completely new e-commerce stack but rather focus solely on the front-end part, where the entire customer experience happens. Instead of changing everything you just customize by making the necessary modifications. This saves lots of time and makes switching to a headless solution stressless.

Do headless solutions fit everyone?

The short answer is no but let us explain it. 

How do you know what approach is better for you? You should consider multiple factors to make the right decision. In general, headless commerce is the best option for businesses with significant potential for scaling and the need for expanded web functionality and improved customer experience. It is advanced yet not universal. 

The very first thing you need to do is to analyze your business’s current state. If it is doing well enough with traditional commerce, it may not be worth the resources to shift to headless architecture. After all, it always depends on the goals you’re trying to achieve. Set them clearly to understand whether headless commerce is exactly what can take you there. 

If you’re set to create a highly personalized and outstanding customer experience along with complex and flexible development, and you have enough resources to make the transformation, then going headless must be suitable for you. The chances of growing with a headless architecture make all the challenges worth it.

Here is one more thing for you to consider – money and time are the most valuable resources in terms of headless transformation. An enterprise headless project is quite pricey and time-consuming. Annual maintenance costs, the required functionality, complexity, supporting tools, the level of customization, and other channels built on a headless platform (a mobile app, audio stream, or video game integration) are the additional factors impacting the total price.  

Top 5 headless commerce platforms to know

Should you be looking for a headless commerce platform that suits your needs perfectly, you’ll see an extensive range of options. There are lots of them as of now. Every platform has a slightly different set of features, as there are no two 100% same cases. Each business has its own reasons for going headless. We’ve gathered some of the best headless platforms in 2023. Check them out right here: 

1. Shopify Plus integrates seamlessly with business systems like an ERP, PIM, CRM, and CMS. It allows publishing to any channel and turning any device into a platform for your business. You can engage your consumers by making use of customized storefronts like kiosks, wearables, vending machines, and billboards. Shopify Plus is good for both mid-market and enterprise businesses.
2. BigCommerce enables the designing of unique online storefronts and managing clients, orders, product catalogs, pricing, and promotions easily. Generating and publishing digital content is simple with the platform’s integrated content management system. BigCommerce performs well regardless of the device or channel. Besides typical headless commerce features, the platform also features integrations via pre-built connections to some well-known CMS, DXP, and front-end frameworks.
3. Adobe Commerce, formerly known as Magento Commerce, is a popular headless commerce platform that combines content management capabilities with powerful commerce functionality. It provides a rich set of features, including catalog management, order management, customer segmentation, personalization, and marketing automation. Adobe Commerce offers flexible APIs and extensive integrations, allowing businesses to create immersive and engaging shopping experiences. Adobe Commerce allows building app-like experiences across multiple touchpoints like mobile apps, multi-webpage apps, IoT devices, and even AR and VR. One of the platform’s strongest points is the high level of customization. 
4. Kentico Kontent is a robust headless CMS that empowers businesses to manage and deliver content across various digital channels and devices. Its headless architecture, content modeling capabilities, collaboration features, and multichannel content delivery options make it a versatile solution for businesses aiming to provide personalized and engaging experiences to their audiences. The platform works as a web content management system to build websites, online shops, and web 2.0 community sites using Microsoft SQL and ASP.NET servers. The preferred development environments are Visual Studio and Microsoft MVC. Kentico Kontent includes features like inline ideas, tasks, and reviews for smooth collaboration across a company.
5. Salesforce Commerce Cloud ensures agility and security and allows you to integrate with various marketplaces, Slack, AR systems, and the Salesforce family or product, including its popular CRM. The platform provides opportunities for personalizing customer interactions by unifying all of your data. 

Summary

Headless commerce is a rapidly growing trend that is predicted to be shaping the future of e-commerce. The possibilities it already creates are endless. However, as it is a move to a new system, there are certain challenges you should pay attention to. 

To sum up, moving to headless architecture requires a kind of digital maturity. This process is possible with deep expertise, experience, and considerable resources. Once conducted successfully, the transformation will bring a myriad of benefits. But don’t get blinded by them! Think well if it is efficient for you. After all, what works well for one company may absolutely not fit another.