E-commerce has been gaining gigantic momentum in the past years. The pandemic gave it a further boost and boom! Now all businesses are digital. In this age of fast and perpetually changing technology, from eCommerce retailers to software companies providing eCommerce solutions, everyone is always on their toes to create or make use of better technologies respectively.
Another technology that has been gaining significant popularity due to the remarkable benefits it brings to the table is Headless commerce. It’s a not-so-new talk in the eCommerce realm but certainly, the talk everyone needs to have!
What is headless commerce?
Headless commerce is an approach that separates the back end from the front end! In simple terms, anything that you do in the front end does not affect the backend processes. This separation of the two allows for great flexibility and unlocks the many doors of opportunities for businesses.
Headless systems allow for total customisations which are made possible through API calls, which are a mode of communication between the two layers and make the websites very flexible.
With greater agility, headless systems make the site more agile and shun interdependencies.
Headless commerce has brought about major changes in the eCommerce industry by empowering brands and retailers to a great extent with the liberty of what they can do with their websites.
The competition in the digital markets is enormous. There are chiliads of businesses and millions of products people can choose from. In such a competition, retailers must stand apart to grab customers’ attention. Everyone is doing the same thing to promote themselves like having a social media presence, content marketing and more but what matters is how successfully one offers a diversified and personalized experience to the customers.
Benefits of going headless
Headless commerce is undoubtedly the present and future of eCommerce. There is a plethora of benefits that headless commerce bestows upon online businesses from scalability to flexibility to agility to reduced total costs of ownership, and the list goes on. Below are some of the most important benefits of headless commerce that would make you believe why it has become important to go headless:
Adaptability
Headless systems empower great adaptability by allowing you to replace or add any microservices required and that’s what makes them composable. They offer you the liberty to use the best solutions across the stack without worrying about the backend and the freedom to choose the framework that fits best to your needs.
It doesn’t only support switching to any platforms or microservices, it allows you to be present on multiple channels with consistent data.
The composable architecture of headless sites makes them superior to the monolithic systems which were not designed to support such adaptability. Hence limitless customizations, flexibility and superior control are key features of the headless architecture.
Faster websites and enhanced Performance
Customers don’t wait! If your site takes ages to load, you will certainly lose customers (until they have a brand loyalty too high which again takes the right efforts to retain them). Hence, having a site that loads fast is too important for an eCommerce retailer to ignore.
The headless architecture allows sites to load fast as the front end is decoupled from the backend and the heavy backend processes don’t affect the front end. Traditional commerce platforms did not have this capability, so the sites took a long to load leading to a high bounce rate and lost conversions.
Since headless sites have higher speeds, SEO performance is positively impacted by it and the sites also rank better.
Out-and-out customizations and Flexibility
Headless architecture makes it possible to make limitless customisations by making use of APIs and SDKs. One can also create targeted marketing campaigns and enhance customer experience by offering what they want to see.
An amazing aspect of going headless is that it offers great flexibility where one can choose the front end and back end as one pleases and create the store as one dreamt for. One can design the entire storefront without the constraints of backend processes. This allows websites to innovate and create better and provide the user experience that aligns with their brand identity without compromising on their requirements as traditional systems provide limited templates.
Better scalability
In today’s highly competitive environments, online businesses want to stay updated with technological trends and adapt to changes quickly to grab even the slightest opportunity to stand apart. Headless commerce makes it possible to upscale and downscale fast whenever required and helps businesses stay aligned.
Reduced CAC
Customer acquisitions are usually expensive with brands investing huge amounts in awareness and advertising and traditional systems (also known as monolithic systems) made it harder.
Headless systems help create an enhanced customer experience leading to better conversion rates. The acquisition expenditure is compensated with the conversions (increased returns on ad spend) and hence lower CAC.
With headless systems, brands can create a better experience for users and keep them engaged with enhanced personalization, paving the way to increased conversions and repeat business.
Personalisation
Personalization is the key to keeping customers engaged and connected. Headless systems empower one to create personalized experiences for customers based on their demographics, likes and interests. Recommending addons, showing similar products, and sending personalised messages and promotions make customers feel they are being catered to.
Also, a customer might open a mobile app and cart an item but buy it from the website rather or vice-versa. With the availability of multiple touchpoints, it’s important to have consistent data ubiquitously as mismatched data might come at the cost of losing customers.
Conclusion
Headless is not only a buzzword but the need of the hour. Headless systems have made it easier for brands and retail sites to scale efficiently, be versatile and adapt to the changes in the everchanging market requirements. Going headless elevates the brand’s website appearance and allows brands to keep abreast with their competitors. With the capability to make changes instantly, it has empowered brands for limitless creativity and makes it reflect in their digital presence what they truly stand for.
Have you gone headless yet?