What is Headless Commerce and how is it changing the Retail industry?

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a paradigm shift in the marketplace, resulting in remarkable digital transformation. It calls for the reinventing and redefinition of business modules such as strategies, structures and cultures. Only the digitally savvy companies could thrive in the pandemic phase while the rest suffered huge losses and had to adapt to the fast-track digital culture.

The digital wave has also not left the eCommerce platforms untouched. It has significantly influenced the buying pattern of customers. In this context, headless commerce is one of the most popular eCommerce buzzwords. Let’s deep dive into the main components, benefits and the impact of the headless commerce system.

So, what is headless commerce?

Headless commerce is a straightforward concept of decoupling the frontend and backend of an eCommerce application. As the name implies, headless commerce stores, manage and deliver content data without the head i.e. frontend.

In this system the developers have the option of using API to deliver products and other related content. This content is consumed and displayed on various types of screens or devices. Furthermore, frontend developers can design a website's frontend on any CMS (WordPress, Contentful, etc.) and then integrate it with an eCommerce backend like Shopify or Magento.

Over the past years, there has been a dramatic change in consumer’s demand and buying patterns. “eCommerce is becoming a habit of customers” (shared by eMarketer in2019)(https://on.emarketer.com/rs/867-SLG901/images/eMarketer_Future_of_Retail_Report_Braze_2019.pdf ), which is ever increasing with rapidly changing trends and consumer’s expectations of enriched user experience, flexibility, and agility of buying experience.

Traditional commerce vs headless commerce.

Headless commerce lays down groundbreaking changes in the retail industry. In contrast to a typical traditional commerce platform, which works in a predefined fashion of frontend and backend working together, headless commerce works in a separate and unrestricted manner where the API forms the bridge between the two ends, allowing for a wide range of customization features and personalized designs. Moreover, traditional commerce is limited to a website and mobile devices, whereas headless commerce works across any platform, from a website to IoT devices and everything in between.

Another significant difference between the two is their ability to adapt to changes quickly. Changes in traditional commerce take a long time to implement because the frontend and backend are inextricably linked and there is always a double work of making code changes from both ends. Headless commerce, on the other hand, caters to the fast-paced market of adopting various new designs because developers are free to use any templet they want and have the content delivered from the backend.

What are the top benefits of headless commerce?

There are numerous benefits to implementing headless commerce in the retail industry. It is a flexible, adaptable, simplified, efficient, and independent system of conducting business across platforms and devices. Let us look at some of its main advantages:

1. Enables omnichannel capabilities: It facilitates you to follow a vision of everywhere commerce by allowing you to sell your retail products on any platform such as Snapchat, Instagram, Pinterest, and so on. According to studies, a large percentage of online shoppers shop omnichannel. You can use this solution to analyze your target audience and sell your products on the most appropriate platform.
2. Seamless integration: Because a headless commerce environment is API driven it becomes easier to seamlessly integrate with CRMs or ERP systems. This is very crucial to step up your retail business. With a headless architecture, you can make your eCommerce environment flexible which is very useful in the long run to thrive in the retail industry.
3. Conversion optimization: If you are using a legacy system then you are well aware of the restrictions or inconvenience of trying different designs and concepts for the customer buying journey. With headless commerce you can experiment as much as you want to for example you can try interesting templates for thank you pages, or doing different product pages, or make rapid design changes. It enables you to keep up a competitive edge by making constant changes in your business process with the changing market trends.
4. Enhanced customer experience: Headless commerce always lets you stay updated and relevant to your target customers. Hence, the customers find it interesting, relatable, and convenient to shop from you. Furthermore, owing to its multi-platform usage it helps to create more brand awareness and assurance to your customers.

Transformation of retail industry through headless commerce.

Today, headless commerce has become the backbone of the retail industry’s digital transformation. Companies can now create interesting and relevant business models, introduce selling strategies across various channels and touchpoints, and gain more business flexibility, customization, and agility than ever. Headless commerce is significantly scaling the retail business and setting grounds to formulate future-ready solutions. With changing times, the consumerist approach has also found a new phase. Selling is no more just about the product or services rather it involves a lot of other factors like building the aesthetics of the product, making it appealing to the consumers, or marketing it through current trends. API headless commerce solution accelerates digital selling strategies across platforms, reduces the cost and time of business processes and marketing.