Why headless commerce platforms will become mainstream in the short term

If you're in the e-commerce business, you've no doubt heard about 'going headless.' But what exactly does this mean and what are the main benefits? And why do we believe that headless will soon become mainstream? Headless commerce is hot and here to stay. In this blog we explain why.

Let's start with what exactly is headless commerce. According to Wikipedia, headless commerce is 'an e-commerce architecture where the front-end is decoupled from the back-end commerce functionality.' That front is an appearance of your online store in any channel - whether this is a website, webshop, app, in-store touchscreen, social media platform or someone else's marketplace. The back is the e-commerce platform with functionalities that facilitate the buying process behind the scenes. So this e-commerce platform is headless (headless).

The front and back work independently of each other and communicate via APIs (Application Programming Interface). Separating the front-end and back-end creates a faster, more flexible, customizable environment, enabling you to offer your customers a diverse shopping experience, regardless of sales channel. It does not matter whether you want to operate in b2b, b2c or d2c, or if you want to combine those segments.

Monolithic vs headless platform

While traditional e-commerce platforms can run into limitations in design and functionality, a headless platform gives you more freedom to customize your front-end. Choose the CMS you want to work with or already work with and choose a design and content that resonates with your target group(s). In addition, headless storefronts often provide a drastic improvement in the speed of your site and an optimal customer experience.

You can now create a unique shopping experience, while the existing back-end remains intact. Adjustments and additions on the front-end can be made without disrupting the back-end. This is a big advantage over a monolithic architecture where your CMS, the shopping cart, the checkout, the subscription function and the design of your site are intertwined. Because of this, changes to one part of a store also require changes elsewhere - which can make updates slow and cumbersome. In addition, there is often a slow loading time of web pages, due to the many API calls and the technical limitations of the platform.

With a headless platform, such as that of BigCommerce, you can easily personalize the customer journey and make adjustments in the online store using a best-of-breed tech stack. This way you offer an optimal customer experience, regardless of the channel or device on which your customer is located.

The benefits of headless for organizations:

• Better performance of your webshop, even with a lot of content
• More options for personalization
• More flexibility, allowing you to respond more quickly to changes and to replace certain components when they no longer meet the requirements.

In short: with a headless platform you can offer your customers an exceptional shopping experience, your merchandising and e-commerce team will have the maximum flexibility and your revenue will rise to the next level with the right look & feel of your channels.

All of this is necessary with the explosion of the amount of online sales channels in the coming years. With a headless approach you shorten your time-to-market and increase your flexibility. In this way you can respond to the rapidly changing world and rapid technological developments. If you want to stay relevant, you have to expand and adapt your channels every time to continue to excite customers. With the help of a headless platform you ensure that you are and remain relevant.

Not just for large corporates

Our partner BigCommerce – one of the largest suppliers of e-commerce platforms worldwide – is seeing the demand for headless SaaS solutions growing fast – also in the Netherlands. Their customers are no longer just the large corporates. More and more medium-sized companies and startups with ambitious growth plans are also discovering the potential of headless, partly due to the rise of affordable turn-key headless. These are less comprehensive solutions for a limited budget. This way you can quickly develop a minimum viable product (MVP). By using attractively priced CMSs such as Prismic or Strapi, you can reduce costs even further.

The advantages of headless are countless and more and more companies and industries are discovering this too. It is therefore inevitable that headless will become mainstream in the short term.