Do a search for \u201cHeadless<\/strong>,\u201d\u00a0and you will find thousands of articles talking about this new approach. Most authors appreciate it for the freedom it offers for front-end development, while\u00a0a big chunk of its fan base appreciates its excellent\u00a0user interface\u00a0(UI). Regardless, it is ecommerce businesses that are showing a great interest in implementing Headless\u00a0for their online store.<\/p>\n I have previously discussed\u00a0Progressive Web Apps<\/a>, which is\u00a0a part of this approach. A similar concept has been embraced\u00a0by ecommerce giants like Amazon, Flipkart, and Nike, with the sole purpose of rendering a high-end customer experience.<\/p>\n Is this article\u00a0another love letter to Headless website development? To an extent, yes. But I\u00a0prefer to discuss its benefits for ecommerce businesses and how, as a third party website development agency, helped to implement Headless for\u00a0some of the most popular ecommerce platforms.<\/p>\n Optimize Your Website and More<\/p>\n with Semrush tools<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Basics<\/strong>: Every ecommerce website consists of two functional halves \u2014\u00a0the front end and the back end.<\/p>\n The front end of the website acts as an intermediary\u00a0channel between the user and the ecommerce portal, while the back end manages the product details and the portal’s\u00a0entire functioning. Over the years, popular ecommerce portals have stuck to the classic approach where the front end and the back end of the website are controlled from the same panel, meaning they\u00a0share a common platform.<\/p>\n Enter Headless with an entirely new strategy. If you have not\u00a0heard about Headless, it essentially serves to separate\u00a0the front end and the back end of a\u00a0website. With less\u00a0interference, each part of the website behaves independently and excels\u00a0in their respective fields \u2014 you have a UI expert to handle the face of the portal and\u00a0a back-end expert to strengthen the base:<\/p>\n Why are they so different?<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n Without delving\u00a0into the minutiae of Ecommerce\u00a0architecture, what follows are roughly designed portal structures\u00a0to illustrate\u00a0the basic functioning of ecommerce websites and their interactions at every stage.<\/p>\n Full Stack architecture is a more conventional approach\u00a0that mobile webmasters\u00a0have used\u00a0since mobile app development started becoming\u00a0a trend. Developers create a full-fledged ecosystem with the commerce platform at the center, coupled with an integrated storefront. The portal renders individual platforms such as\u00a0mobile and web separately. The deliverables are more independent and dedicated to the serving platform.<\/p>\n With the commerce platform at the center, the commerce portal prioritizes\u00a0backend functions like content management, fulfillment, and product data.<\/p>\n Full-stack ecommerce architecture<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n Compared to\u00a0full-stack architecture, Headless ecommerce structure clearly separates the front end of the web store from the rest of the\u00a0website’s functions. It helps to visualize this architecture as separate parts rather than a common centralized system. The deliverables are\u00a0managed with APIs that render a common front-end UI that smartly adjusts to\u00a0all\u00a0platforms.<\/p>\n For obvious reasons, the front end now prioritizes functions like payment and personalization while the commerce platform manages the likes of content management, fulfillment, and product management. Seem\u00a0too technical? It can be summed with this\u00a0singular\u00a0point: Headless ecommerce is far\u00a0more flexible than\u00a0conventional approaches in terms of rendering an\u00a0omnichannel experience<\/a>.<\/p>\n Retail Dive and BigCommerce recently came up with staggering numbers in a\u00a0survey<\/a>\u00a0that involved global executives and marketing managers\u00a0and their struggles with\u00a0acquiring digital consumers. According to the report, 86% of business leaders indicated\u00a0that they were experiencing a rise in Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC). With paid media getting costlier and more competitive,\u00a0the report suggests that the preferable\u00a0option is to strategize better\u00a0ways to attract organic traffic.<\/p>\n Users are consuming content from nearly everywhere. Beyond an online presence and enhanced shopping experience, businesses need to provide\u00a0consumers easy purchase options\u00a0across all devices. This statement is backed by a\u00a0Mediapost survey<\/a>, which claims that Americans will be connected across 13 network devices per person. Needless to say, the list includes devices of all kinds with a variety of screen dimensions like laptops, tablets, mobile phones, voice recognition tools, smartwatches, kiosks, car tablets, and every device known to render accessibility to web services.<\/p>\n As an agency that offers custom ecommerce solutions, our clients often ask us to deliver portals that are lightning-fast to load and equally intuitive at the user\u2019s end. And, what we do is recommend the headless approach. For obvious reasons, it needs us to go the extra mile, but that reaps good\u00a0results for them.<\/p>\n Backend:<\/strong>\u00a0Magento commerce platform<\/p>\n Frontend:<\/strong>\u00a0Angular JS<\/p>\n Problem<\/strong>\u00a0addressed:<\/strong><\/p>\n Loading issues \u2014\u00a0the original website took up to 7 seconds to show up. Which meant a blank screen for more than 7 seconds. Magento, by default, offers a frontend designed on the KnockoutJS based CMS. The highly integrated storefront restricted the webstore on many fronts. The growing number of users had started taking a toll on store performance.<\/p>\n Our solution:<\/strong><\/p>\n With a headless template designed with Angular JS, we filtered the backend from affecting the storefront. The classic lazyload approach reduced the page loading time by nearly half.<\/p>\n Result:<\/strong><\/p>\n Page loading time sharply reduced from 7 seconds to 2.8 seconds.<\/em><\/p>\n Backend<\/strong>: Magento Commerce platform<\/p>\n Frontend<\/strong>: VueJS<\/p>\n Problem Addressed:<\/strong><\/p>\n Page Navigation<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 Magento\u2019s expertise is limited to the backend performance. Its frontend is rather rigid and often needs you to take a tour for the backend, every time you take an action on the storefront. You click a new page, the store passes the request to the Magento backend, processes the data, and allows you to load the new page. Page navigation is one thing that was harmed in the process.<\/p>\n We were able to establish a Single Page Application on Magento with VueJS. The user can now navigate between the pages in the Vue template itself. A big chunk of the query is already solved on the Vue template saving the Magento backend from being burnt out.<\/p>\n Result:<\/strong><\/p>\n Page navigation time slices by manifolds.<\/em><\/p>\n Backend<\/strong>: Shopify Commerce platform<\/p>\n Frontend:<\/strong>\u00a0Gatsby JS<\/p>\n Long Checkout sessions<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 The checkout sessions on any ecommerce platform, including\u00a0Shopify<\/a>, are usually too long. The users are asked to fill 4 long pages before paying. The back story \u2014\u00a0post every page, the store reloads the next page from the Shopify backend, followed by the processing delay by third party payment gateways. That being said, we have buffers at every stage, making the payment section time-consuming and irritating.<\/p>\n Above all, Shopify limits the ability to customize the checkout page restricting the admin\u2019s control over its content.<\/p>\nWhat is Headless Ecommerce?<\/h2>\n
The Basic Architecture of Ecommerce Portals<\/h2>\n
Full Stack Architecture<\/h3>\n
Headless Ecommerce<\/h3>\n
\n<\/span><\/p>\nA Sudden Rise in Demand for Headless<\/h3>\n
Practical Cases in Our Lab: How we Developed Headless Architecture for Our Clients<\/h2>\n
Implementing a Headless Magento<\/h3>\n
Another Headless Magento Case Study<\/h3>\n
Our Solution:<\/h4>\n
Implementing Headless on a Shopify Webstore<\/h3>\n