How Smart Is Your Headless Commerce?

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Why Are We Talking About Headless Commerce? Because

Image credit: Monika Stando, Vue Storefront

Headless commerce is still a buzzword in the CPG universe like ‘big data’ once was. Many people talk about it, not sure if every one of those really understands it. Do you have one in place, is it smart enough for your business needs? But what does it actually mean, and how does it work? Do you really know?

Oracle ATG, SAP Hybris, Adobe Magento, IBM WebSphere, and Demandware/Salesforce have something in common. Those were the legacy eCommerce platforms introduced in the 90s as an all-in-one solution for sellers and consumers, using desktop computers for eCommerce. They were often referred to as a monolith because they were inherently rigid and built with a fixed set of rules from user experience to supported channels.

Fast forward to today with the rise of mobile devices, internet-based devices, and even refrigerators being considered as revenue streams, the rules of digital commerce have changed.

1. ?The addition of new digital touchpoints to the shopper journey, which these original platforms were not built for.
2. The ever-increasing consumer expectations for modern, engaging digital experiences.
3. And the steady rise of digital commerce as the primary channel for most businesses to engage and convert customers has changed all of that.

No single vendor or platform can offer all of the applications needed to deliver eCommerce experiences?that meet the demands of today’s shoppers.?

What Is Headless Commerce?

Headless?is a technology that allows separating the backend (i.e., the entire technical background responsible for the operation of the application) from the frontend (i.e., everything that the consumer sees). Why is this separation beneficial? Because it allows for better optimization of the website, adjusting it to the user's expectations, or experimenting on the frontend without "contacting" the backend.?

Microservices?- microservices architecture is used in modern systems and consists of a combination of both internal and external services connected via their APIs. In such a model, each service is self-sufficient and pursues a specific business goal. Unlike monolithic architecture, which was based on one common engine, when we want to make a change in a particular service, we work on a specific microservice rather than building a system from scratch.?

How Does Headless Commerce Work?

The front-end of our site or app is on the first level at the top. Different components of the frontend are developed independently for different devices. Because of this, as many touchpoints or customer channels as our brands may have, we can have that many frontends connected to one backend.

The back-end of our site or app is on the 2nd level from the bottom. It’s consisted of microservices, which are independent coding blocks. Each one of them works with its own database. For example, your brand store can have separate microservices for the product catalog, on-site search, shopping cart, checkout page, payment, CMS, or customer service.

And our database is at the bottom, this is where we collect and organize information about our brand store.

5 Business Benefits of Headless Commerce

1.????Customization: You can customize your front-end with your brand identity and UX design principles without template or platform limitations.

2.???Sandbox Environment: You can run UX experiments, A/B test specific parts of the site without jeopardizing the whole ecosystem.

3.??Out-of-the-box agility: You can implement new UX changes faster since you don’t have to redeploy a backend system when working in a decoupled environment.

4.???Scalability: The front-end and back-end can be scaled independently so that even if the front-end receives a lot of traffic, the commerce functions are not impacted.

5.???Endless Touchpoints: If you want to add a mobile app, social channels, or in-car marketplace shopping, you can do it quickly. So you don’t have to build a business case for a new back-end every time you need to add a new front-end.

Headless Commerce Use Cases

• Headless commerce can be personalized for different regions: For global brand sites, depending on the geolocation, messaging behind products could match the intended audience. You can create subsets of page content for apps or sites in the backend of a headless CMS, allowing different, region-specific channels to pull matching messaging for any given audience. Result: Tailored messaging increases successful conversion.
• Headless commerce enables formatting for different delivery methods: There are extensive conversion opportunities available in many different devices and applications.?Endpoints can be adapted to funnel visitors into systems that provide them with the information or resources they’re seeking from our brands (e.g., purchase/conversion, recipe, loyalty perks, etc.)
• Headless commerce provides integration with other systems: Depending on the use case, businesses can use headless commerce with a decoupled kind of front-end or with a traditional monolith system, also called "head optional".
• Headless commerce helps to overcome language obstacles

Four Steps to Migrate to a Headless Commerce Platform

1. Discover your white space: List all the current platform offers, what they don't offer, and set your priorities. Make sure you get alignment from your digital marketing teams before the launch.
2. Prepare migration roadmap: Decide when you want to migrate your front-end, how and when you'll move product catalogs and data, user profiles, and product orders.
3. Extract your data: Besides your data and IT teams, your digital marketing people need to be involved in this process, especially for defining your objects, sub-SKUs, attributes.
4. Import and validate your data: Even though this is a technical task, digital marketing owners/stakeholders of this process should verify your data in the new ecosystem. At the end of the day, this will impact their day-to-day procedures.

What Is the Next Step? (Hint: Composable Commerce)

We can talk about it in another newsletter, but in summary, Composable Commerce leverages modern technologies and approaches like MACH (Microservices, API, Cloud, Headless) and JAMstack (JavaScript, APIs, and Markup) to adapt to the ever-changing market dynamics.

You can also watch the video of this article here:

By 2023, Gartner predicts that organizations that have adopted a composable commerce approach will outpace the competition by 80% at the speed of new feature implementation.

Are you ready to hit $1 trillion e-commerce sales?in the US in 2022? Digital acceleration is here and brick&mortar rebound will be more difficult in 2022. eCommerce presents a long-term growth opportunity and it's also proven its short-term catalyst impact.

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Your digital credentials?will help you if you're thinking about changing jobs. 73% of digital talent?expect to switch positions in the next 2-3 years, and 40% are actively job hunting.

Check out these 2 reports from IMS Global Learning Consortium, 1EdTech Foundation, and Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

A recent study reports there's growing employer support for competency frameworks, talent analytics, and skills training.

(Click on the image to go the original post)

++ THE FACTS ++

???87% of HR?leaders report having heard of digital badges, with almost half (48%) hired a badge holder or have encountered badges in screening candidates.

???73% of employers are using talent analytics?in some way to improve hiring.

???69% of employers support industry-led competency frameworks.

???34% of HR leaders indicated their organization uses hiring strategies with a lens on competencies over college degrees.

???42% of respondents say their organization is exploring and considering skills and competency-based hiring approaches.

???95% of respondents want flexibility by working at least one day a week from home, only 25% would like to work fully remotely.?

++ INSIGHTS ++

??Employers view digital credentials as an opportunity to evaluate skills?and specialized knowledge with built-in evidence.

??For digital employees, having a good work-life balance continues to be the most valued aspect of their job. But financial compensation, in the form of both salaries and long-term incentives such as stock options and shares, has gained ground, rising from fifth to third place.

??The US, the UK, and Australia top the list of countries where digital talent would look for remote jobs.?People who are willing to move to another country for work have declined to 55% (from 67% in 2018). However, 68% would be happy to work remotely for an employer without a physical presence in their country, significantly higher than the 57% cross-job average.

??Developing a comprehensive strategy for digital talent is a must for all employers.

by MIT Sloan School of Management

NRF 2022 ?–?Retail’s Big Show

January 16–18, 2022?| New York | In-Person?| eCommerce & Retail

EEE Miami ?– Ecommerce Experience Evolution

Feb?23, 2022?|?Miami (Florida) | In-Person?|?eCommerce

B2B Marketing Exchange

Feb?28 –?Mar?2, 2022?|?Scottsdale?(Arizona) |?In-Person?|?Marketing &?B2B

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About Mert Damlapinar

Mert Damlapinar has been in director roles for eCommerce, digital marketing, and sales, he's currently Global eCommerce Lead, Sr.Mgr. for Mondelez International. He holds a master's degree in Applied Business Analytics from Boston University, executive management certificates in Integrated Digital Marketing from Cornell University, and Applied Data Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He's currently working on his 2nd book.

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