We can all agree that the pandemic has changed the way we shop, and it has also redefined our relationship with how and where we buy the things we want. With the rise in the online shopping phenomenon, there has naturally been a rise in the number of online shopping platforms. Businesses have needed to invent new brands to meet these growing needs; this trend is known as headless commerce.
You might have heard the term ‘headless commerce’ or headless e-commerce; it is often one of the most discussed, however, the least recognised trends in e-commerce. In this article, we shall speak about headless commerce, its advantages and disadvantages, and the entire headless commerce framework.
The rapid technological growth and the prevailing global digital landscape have placed prime importance on the customer. Long gone are the days of traditional shopping; with the increase in shopping through online platforms such as online stores, mobile, social media, it has become mandatory for businesses to evolve and adapt to these growing needs. However, one must understand that several e-commerce platforms are not equipped to grow with the ever-changing competition. Due to this reason, there has been a quick transition into headless commerce for digital delivery.
Table of Contents
What is Headless Commerce?
In layman’s terms, the term ‘headless commerce’ refers to the separation of the back end and the front end of an e-commerce application. Here, the front end of the e-commerce application refers to the user interface, social commerce, and all other components related to the digital marketplace. The front end of the application can be changed without interfering with the aspects related to the back end of the application. The back end refers to all other components that will change the functionality of the e-commerce application. This framework and architecture allow brands to build the application they want in the manner they visualise it. This also helps brands to give their customers an enhanced shopping experience.
Headless Commerce makes intensive use of APIs’ and they act as a critical part of every company’s innovation and functionality and help brands and businesses engage their customers and help them stay ahead of their competitors. With the pandemic, a higher percentage of people shifted towards e-commerce stores and online shopping, which induced e-commerce enthusiasts to give customers a wholesome shopping experience. Headless commerce also gives enterprises much more flexibility and helps e-commerce store owners to provide their customers with a unique and customised shopping experience.
What are the Benefits of Headless Commerce?
Several firms and organisations that have adopted the architecture of headless commerce are essentially organisations that are typically more influential organisations that have the bandwidth towards creating constant development with custom programming. These businesses often take a longer time to produce an e-commerce application that is creative, ambitious, and grabs the customers’ attention at the first go. Given the current pandemic situation, businesses constantly need to develop applications to hit the market. To understand it better, let’s take a look at the benefits of headless commerce and how it helps in accelerating your business.
Employee Adoption
With headless commerce, organisations can test and experiment with new technologies because of the constant need to implement further changes and provide unique experiences for their customers. This requires everyone on the team to be highly skilled and advanced with their skills.
Building Tools
Another great benefit of headless commerce is that it allows brands to build custom tools to give shoppers a unique shopping experience. They are focused on being coordinated and providing brand-centric experiences across all channels.
Saves Time
Since headless commerce demands developers to make changes in the front end, since making changes in the front end part of the application is much more manageable and agile, it saves time for developers to make changes without spending too much time. It helps developers create e-commerce applications that have a higher conversion rate.
Market Trends
Since headless commerce requires businesses to catch up to the competition, they are on the constant lookout for creating new front-end experiences rapidly. This helps companies to stay ahead of all the market trends with lesser costs and within a quick turnaround time.
Takeaway
We do understand that not all developers are designers, and not all designers are not developers. However, with the right team backed with ample creative and technical skills, headless commerce offers businesses optimised experiences for shoppers and improves customer engagement rates and conversions. With several success stories of this trend of e-commerce, we are sure that headless commerce will turn out to be highly successful for businesses thriving online.
