If we talk about the 21st century, then one can surely say that Headless eCommerce is one of the most popular topics in this new era of Ecommerce. Nowadays people are more used to online shopping and this sudden rise in the eCommerce industry is due to the COVID 19 pandemic. There is a lot of improvement and vast growth in the eCommerce industry. But only offering an attractive storefront is not enough, so today we are going to talk about the next big thing in the eCommerce industry i.e. Headless eCommerce, an idea derived from the headless revolution. In this article, we will help you to understand headless ecommerce from basics and discover some of the Best headless eCommerce Platforms.

We believe that Headless eCommerce is one of the most discussed topics and also one of the least understood ones in the eCommerce world. So let’s begin with the definition of headless eCommerce and why to use this?

What is Headless eCommerce, and Why use it?

The simplest and easiest definition of Headless Commerce is:

“Headless Commerce is a kind of separation or we can say a decoupling of the front end and back end of your website. Both these get decoupled and stand independently from each other. The content presentation layer and the business logic gets separated and offer business owners to have complete freedom to build whatever they wish for”

Using headless commerce, developers can make changes to your website without affecting the user experience. The front end (template or a theme) is considered as head in an ecommerce application which is removed in Headless commerce leaving the business logic (backend) for content delivery. Front End developers can focus only on representing that content using whatever framework they need.

Headless Commerce Vs Traditional Commerce

Let’s take a look at some of the differences between traditional commerce and headless commerce. Look into every single detail and choose which is beneficial to your business.

What is Headless Commerce Architecture and How does it Work?

Now as we get to know what headless eCommerce is and how it is different from traditional eCommerce, let’s get into the details of what is its architecture and how headless eCommerce works.

Headless eCommerce structure refers to the separation of the front end of your website from the backend and is aimed at pushing your website content or data to any type of front-end application via APIs. Headless architecture is nothing but a subset of decoupled architecture.

The front end will focus on functions like personalizations and the payment process while the back end part will manage the fulfillment, content, and product management. For example, when customers try to checkout, the front-end part of your website will connect with the APIs, which then connect with the back-end function. So whenever a customer takes an action, API jumps and presents the respective information to the customer. This is a separate yet seamless process.

Seems too technical for you? Let’s sum it up with this single point: In terms of rendering an omnichannel experience, headless commerce is more flexible than conventional approaches.

Some Features of Headless Ecommerce

We have listed below some of the essential features of headless eCommerce:

• ⦁ Content modeling, designing, and approval
• ⦁ Freedom of choosing the framework
• ⦁ Workflow and integration enhancement
• ⦁ Multi-lingual
• ⦁ Management of digital assets
• ⦁ Extendable/Scalable

Advantages & Disadvantages of Headless eCommerce

We have already explained how this Headless eCommerce platform works. Now let’s have a look at the pros and cons of this eCommerce approach. We all know that nothing comes without flaws. Check out below a compiled list of benefits and flaws of this Headless eCommerce.

What are the Best eCommerce Platforms to Develop a Headless eCommerce Website?

Here we have put together a list of the Top 5 Best Headless eCommerce Platforms

⦁ Shopify Plus

Shopify Plus, one of the leading cloud-based, multi-channel headless eCommerce platforms for the big brands with a huge amount of products, high volume, coupling speed, agility, and scalable foundation for these big brands who need to grow bigger and faster. Shopify has the ability to integrate PIM Content Management System, ERP, Customer Relationship Management, and design systems.

Shopify is way better than traditional eCommerce in terms of customizations, modern interface, extensibility, ease to use, and unlimited integrations. Also, it provides accelerated as well as localized customer experiences and customizable checkouts.

Headless Shopify has below advantages:

• ⦁ Easy adoption of PWA
• ⦁ Helps to improve store performance with a decoupled front end.
• ⦁ User-friendly analytics with pixel settings for tracking cross-channel sales and ecommerce metrics.
• ⦁ Extensive SEO features

⦁ Magento Commerce

Magento Commerce, an open-source eCommerce platform that provides online retailers with a digital shopping experience. Developers can deliver the best-customized applications to customers as per their business requirements. It allows you to easily manage your entire online store using a single interface, from product catalog to order management, shopping carts, fulfillment, inventory management, and customer service.

In addition to this, Magento offers a great shopping experience with a personalized experience, product recommendations, and content, as well as robust sets of tools to the store owners that can help them to grow their online business. Merchants can also take advantage of this platform or use many other tips to boost online sales in magento. Magento provides a rich set of APIs and also integrates with the leading analytics tools like Adobe Target and Google Analytics.

Also read:- Magento Vs Shopify - Which One Is Better For ECommerce In 2023

⦁ Bigcommerce

Bigcommerce is one of the popular cloud-based, omnichannel eCommerce platforms suitable to each and every type of business whether you are a large enterprise or a small business. It is considered the best headless platform for small and medium-sized businesses. It helps store owners to build their online business, innovate and grow the same with all the advanced features and functionalities.

Being a Saas-based headless eCommerce platform, Bigcommerce delivers high performance, advanced functionalities, ease of use, customizations, and simplicity. There are a huge number of customers from various industries who have trusted Bigcommerce for their online eCommerce store. Bigcommerce is a feature-rich, scalable, and flexible platform and has everything that is needed for your online business to manage products, orders, customers, inventory, campaigns, and much more.

⦁ Commercetools

Commercetools is a brand new innovative technology that leverages the revolutionary eCommerce architecture. It is one of the best headless eCommerce platforms due to its microservice architecture. It offers 100% cloud-native capabilities, MACH architecture, high availability, unlimited scalability, and accessibility.

Some important features regarding inventory management are included in this headless eCommerce platform such as multi-store management, tracking inventory, adjusting inventory, return management, and much more.

⦁ Elastic Path

Elastic Path is a flexible and business-ready solution for each business type like B2B, B2C, B2B2C, and multiple touchpoints. Headless eCommerce is an API-based system that allows template-less ecommerce solutions to integrate into the ERP system and best fits enterprise-level organizations.

It is considered as one of the powerful, scalable, and flexible headless platforms to help business owners to build and grow their online eCommerce business.

Headless eCommerce Examples

Below we have listed some of the real-life examples of headless commerce.

Clare: Shopify Plus + Contentful

A commercial website dedicated to making paint shopping easy, simple and inspiring. This website grabs the users’ attention with the light and unobtrusive interface.

Grassroots Coop: Shopify Plus + Contentful

The Grassroots Coop website is into selling high-quality meats and chose to remain stuck with the simple and minimalistic design approach instead of any fancy design.

Gibson: BigCommerce + custom front-end

Gibson also has a headless ecommerce website. It is a brand standing behind the legendary Gibson guitars where new and vintage beauties shine in all their glory.

Olivar Bonas: Magento + Angular.js front-end

Olivar Bonas is a British lifestyle eCommerce store that has an outlet holding a huge amount of items for sale within a simple, and light interface.

Big Green Egg: Magento + custom JS front-end

Big Green Egg was an exclusive take on a garden charcoal grill that turns out as one of the successful startups. This is one of the great examples of how a single original product can turn up to a whole website.

Collegien: Magento + API-First Back-end, PWA

A Magento-based online brand store offering a wide range of various footwear that offers a PWA functionality for purchasing these products.

Wrapping Up:

As stated above, only offering an attractive storefront to customers for online shopping is not enough. You can create a personalized experience for your customers by choosing the right headless eCommerce platforms listed above that fit best as per your business needs. Get in touch with us and we make sure that our magento 2 experts will help you with all your eCommerce needs and also help you to choose the best headless ecommerce platform for your business as per your requirements.