Headless Commerce. You may have heard this term tossed around, but you’re not quite sure what it means.
Headless commerce is an e-commerce architecture in which the front-end and back-end are decoupled. This separates the presentation layer from the business logic and database.
Headless Commerce vs. Traditional Commerce
The shift to new e-commerce models, such as headless commerce, stems from the market’s requirement for flexibility and scalability. Customers want your application’s front-end to provide them with unique, ingenious experiences.
What you should be aware of traditional (monolithic) commerce:
- Noncompetitive performance
- Problems with maintaining numerous frontends
- Sluggish maintenance, customization, and development
- Scalability restrictions
Now you understand the limitations of the traditional model, but, why would you want to switch to headless commerce from traditional commerce? Headless commerce has many advantages over traditional e-commerce architectures:
- Better user experience since the front end can be tailored to specific users without having to change the back end.
- Allows for integration of third party payment processing and marketplaces
- More scalable since the head and body can scale independently.
- Creates a space for content management
- More flexible since the head can be changed without affecting the body (and vice versa).
Possible Roadblocks Associated with Migrating to Headless
Don’t wait for a fast and smooth transition if you decide to step on the headless path. This step requires splitting a store’s backend from the front end. Headless commerce aims to cover various touchpoints and ensure a positive customer experience across them. But you need to create UX/UI designs for multiple screens - taking many designers’ and developers’ hours.
It applies to transforming an existing store or building a headless website from scratch.
As you can see, building or restructuring the website for headless commerce requires time, effort, designers, developers, and money. But in return, you get a flexible website that will pay off in the short and long run.
Resources to learn more about headless commerce:
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