How Headless Ecommerce Can Bring Your Business to the Next Level

Digital transformation has become a buzzword in the ecommerce industry. It’s no longer enough to have a website, build an app, or add social media buttons to your site.

To stay ahead of the game and conquer your rivals, you need to find innovative ways to give shoppers everything they want in one place.

The headless approach to ecommerce is growing in popularity as businesses look for ways to improve their online presence and reach more customers.

This type of architecture removes the need for a centralized server and instead relies on a series of decentralized microservices. This allows businesses to scale their operations more efficiently and provides greater flexibility in managing data and deploying new features.

A headless commerce solution also makes it easier to integrate with third-party applications and services, further improving the customer experience.

If you are ready to scale up your ecommerce business, read on to discover more about the headless system and its advantages for businesses that sell online.

What is the Headless Approach?

A headless approach is a software development architecture that doesn’t use the concept of “page heads” to build the site’s front-end, as it is usually done. In this case, page heads are the parts of code where you usually include metadata like the title, date, and other information displayed at the top of each page.

When you go with a headless commerce platform, you don’t need the HTML head tags anymore since the data is stored in a database. As a result, the site loads faster, and the data is more likely to be accurate.

Headless commerce is a way to build an ecommerce site other than having traditional ecommerce platforms. It uses the same architecture used to build informational websites and progressive web apps. The difference is that an ecommerce site needs to have a way to take payment from customers.

Why Use the Headless Approach?

A headless approach is one of the latest trends in the ecommerce industry, and it has everything to do with scalability. While the traditional approach to building websites and applications relies on pages that contain data and metadata, headless architecture is all about data. And this means building a single source of truth using databases.

The main advantage is that you don’t need to manage multiple pages and content. This saves developers a lot of time because they don’t have to update the HTML code and manually add metadata.

Another reason why you should go with a headless approach is improved performance. In the past, ecommerce sites used to have page heads with metadata loaded on every page. This meant that it took more time to load because the code was included on every page.

There is no need for page heads with a headless approach, and the site loads faster because it doesn’t have this additional code.

Why is the Headless Approach So Popular?

The headless approach offers the best of both worlds. It brings the scalability and flexibility of a SaaS solution with no upfront cost.

It also allows you to keep your data in-house. You can adopt a hybrid or headless model and use a SaaS solution to power your ecommerce website or app. This approach offers all the benefits of a headless solution plus the added security of keeping your data in-house.

A headless content management system (CMS) is a content management system that decouples the back-end and front-end of your website or app. This allows you to use any programming language or framework to build the front-end while using the CMS to manage your content.

Headless commerce platforms are popular because they offer the flexibility to build an ecommerce site using any programming language. This means that you are not limited to the languages supported by your ecommerce platform.

Why Headless Architecture is Essential for Ecommerce Now

The headless approach was initially designed for informational websites. But it gained more popularity in the ecommerce industry as more businesses started adopting it.

While a headless ecommerce architecture has a couple of advantages, the main one is improved scalability. You can easily and quickly expand your business to other geographies and channels with a headless approach.

You don’t have to worry about managing multiple pages, and you can focus on other important things. Another reason why the headless approach is essential for ecommerce now is the push for improved user experience.

When using a headless architecture, you don’t have to worry about the page head taking longer to load. When you go with the headless approach, you store the metadata on the database and then send it to the page that needs it.

Backend commerce functionality is usually built on top of an ecommerce platform. These platforms have APIs that allow you to connect to them and use their functionality in your front-end application.

Benefits of Headless Commerce

Enhanced User Experience

When you go with a headless commerce system, the pages are faster, and there is no need to load the metadata from the head section.

This means that the users don’t have to wait for the page head to load and then wait for the subsequent parts. They get everything at once and can start using your ecommerce site as quickly as possible.

Traditional commerce systems send the page head to the user’s browser and then load the rest of the content. This can take a while, especially if the user is on a slow connection.

Improved Scalability

Since you don’t have to manage multiple pages with metadata in the head section, you can quickly expand your business to other geographies and channels. You don’t have to recreate your architecture and database for every new ecommerce site.

Easy Integration

Using the headless approach, you can easily integrate your website with other applications when you build your ecommerce application. This is especially useful if you want to integrate payment gateways or CRMs into your platform.

Headless CMS is slowly becoming the norm in the ecommerce industry. And it’s not hard to see why. With its many advantages, the headless approach is essential for businesses that want to stay ahead of the competition.

Limitations of the Headless Approach

The main limitation of the headless approach is that it doesn’t offer as much functionality as you can get from a traditional website. While a headless website is great for showcasing products, a website with a page head can offer more functionality such as user account, subscription, product reviews, etc.

Another disadvantage of the headless approach is that it might be difficult for customers to navigate. If you don’t have a search bar or menu, the users won’t know where to start. With the lack of page heads, the users don’t have a header to click on to navigate to different pages.

How to Implement the Headless Approach?

While you can go with a headless architecture, you need to make sure that you choose the right framework. When you build your ecommerce site, you need to create a single source of truth using the database.

Some of the most popular frameworks for ecommerce include:

Goliath

Goliath is a framework built for Go. It has a pluggability feature to choose different database systems to store the data.

MEAN

MEAN is an acronym for MongoDB, ExpressJS, AngularJS, and Node. It’s a full-stack framework often used to create websites and ecommerce sites.

Express

Express is a framework built with JavaScript. It’s often used to create websites and API-driven applications. It has a pluggability feature that allows you to choose different database systems.

Django

Django is a framework built with Python. It’s a full-stack framework used to create websites and API-driven applications. It has a pluggability feature that allows you to choose different database systems.

Meteor

Meteor is a full-stack framework that is built with JavaScript. It’s often used to create websites and API-driven applications. It has a pluggability feature that allows you to choose different database systems.

Serverless Architecture

Serverless architecture is a way to build an app that doesn’t use servers to process the data. You have to plug in the data and plug out the result. It is also called function as a service (FAAS) or function as an end-product (FAE).

How Does Headless Implementation Work?

You can create new connections with different systems when you add a headless architecture to your ecommerce business. These connections help you share data between your ecommerce website, app, distributed order management systems, and other marketing automation tools.

With a headless approach, the ecommerce platform acts as a data source. Your website, app, and connected systems operate as data sinks. Data is exchanged via APIs. These APIs communicate in standard formats like JSON and XML.

All data can be accessed via an API. This data includes product data, inventory data, and customer data. Product metadata like descriptions, images, product attributes, and pricing are visible via an API.

How to Build a Headless Ecommerce Platform?

A headless ecommerce platform is a software solution that manages your business’s product information. It’s the central hub that controls all product data and metadata.

The headless ecommerce software sits between your business’s inventory management system (WMS) and your website or app. If you are looking at developing a new ecommerce site or app, you can implement a headless architecture.

Alternatively, if you have an existing ecommerce platform, you can make it headless by adding a REST API layer.

Traditional commerce platforms are not built for APIs. They are usually closed systems with very little flexibility. To make a traditional ecommerce platform headless, you need to do a lot of customization.

Key Takeaway – Implementing Headless Ecommerce

The headless commerce architecture is where the website or app does not contain any UI. Instead, it is driven by the data provided by the headless ecommerce platform.

The ecommerce platform is responsible for retrieving product data, inventory data, and customer data. The website and app then use this data to display relevant information to customers.

Overall, the headless approach provides many benefits that can help take your ecommerce business to the next level. If you’re looking for ways to improve your online presence and reach more customers, the headless approach is worth considering.

Frequently Asked Questions

Question: What does headless ecommerce mean? 

Answer: Headless ecommerce separates the front-end interface from the back-end data management system. It stores data in databases without traditional HTML head tags and uses APIs to connect different services. This structure allows businesses to manage product information, inventory, and customer data through a central system.

Question: How does Node.js work with headless ecommerce?

Answer: Node.js functions as part of the MEAN stack (MongoDB, ExpressJS, AngularJS, Node) for headless ecommerce implementations. The framework enables creation of API-driven applications and connects with various database systems to process ecommerce data and transactions.

Question: What steps are needed to build a headless commerce website?

Answer: Building a headless commerce website requires selecting a framework, establishing a database as single source of truth, and implementing API connections. The system needs integration with payment processing, inventory management, and order fulfillment services through REST APIs.

Question: Which Node.js frameworks work for headless ecommerce?

Answer: Express and Meteor serve as primary Node.js frameworks for headless ecommerce. These frameworks provide database system flexibility, API creation capabilities, and tools to build the server-side components. They connect with various databases to manage product catalogs and transactions.