What is (& Why) Headless Commerce

In its most basic form, headless commerce is the separation of an e-commerce application’s front end and back end. This architecture allows brands to develop whatever they want, whenever they want. Above all, it allows businesses to improve the consumer experience.

 

The usage of APIs, experienced managers, tools like Heroku and Mulesoft, as well as the necessity of IT partners, are all hallmarks of headless development. These resources are an important aspect of any company’s innovation strategy, as they deliver new features and experiences that engage customers and keep them up to date on their expectations.

 

What are the benefits of headless commerce?

Larger companies with larger development and IT teams, as well as a DIY approach, are the early adopters of headless commerce. This makes sense because the specific programming required to successfully produce and build a distinct front end and back end can take a significant amount of time. These companies frequently have months-long development queues and eager creative and marketing teams who want to test new designs, text, and templates on the front end as soon as possible. With the current health crisis requiring businesses to evolve at a faster rate than ever before, companies must embrace innovation like never before. Because speed-to-market is typically linked to increased cash flow, every hour of developer time is valuable.

 

  • Employee adoption is better. Due to steep learning curves, some businesses may be hesitant to adopt new technology. Because everyone on your team can quickly access and update the front end without advanced knowledge, having a contemporary commerce platform combined with the simplicity of headless commerce overcomes this problem.

 

  • The proper equipment for the job. Brands may use headless commerce to create unique experiences for their customers that they won’t find anywhere else. APIs are essential for ensuring coordinated, brand-consistent experiences across channels, which are powered by common commerce services like promotions, inventories, product information, and more.
  • Time savings in the IT field. Developers save time on user interface changes since updates to the front end may be implemented quickly. Additionally, with headless templates and partner solutions, developers can kickstart commerce projects with just a few clicks or some light coding.

 

  • It’s time to go to the market. Businesses can swiftly develop new front-end experiences with headless commerce. Reacting quickly to a new market trend can be accomplished with minimal back-end effort.

 

These are some of the reasons why companies may desire to move away from traditional e-commerce and toward headless e-commerce. At the same time, businesses looking to improve their user experience should be aware of how becoming headless can help them achieve even higher levels of customer satisfaction.

What is the impact of headless commerce on your customers?

Growing entails fast adapting to meet new customer and social demands. Quick Start Commerce Solutions is allowing branded manufacturers to go direct-to-consumer for the first time. Other businesses are revamping their business strategies, such as Michaels, which just unveiled new fulfillment alternatives in a matter of weeks.

Customers benefit from headless applications and websites as they adopt new ways of communicating with brands in a post-COVID world:

 

  1. Immediate adjustments and optimization
  2. User interfaces and experiences that are rich

 

What is the best way to get started with headless commerce?

The truth is that the majority of developers aren’t designers, and the majority of designers aren’t developers. Developers can use APIs and capabilities provided by commerce platforms to create coordinated, brand-consistent experiences across channels using a single view of data. Meanwhile, creative teams concentrate on what they do best: improving consumer engagement and conversions by optimizing the user experience and interface.

A commerce platform’s versatility ensures that your developers can build quickly while maintaining complete control over tools, code, APIs, and all third-party integrations. Equip developers with the tools and education they need to get ahead of the innovation curve and surpass the competition with the Commerce Cloud Developer Center. It’s a public platform for finding, sharing, and developing commerce applications. Developers can utilize it as a major source of information and help for building unique Salesforce Commerce Cloud experiences.