As social and other interactive platforms take over the digital world, the way we sell products is also changing. More and more businesses are embracing the idea of headless commerce these days. After all, the framework lets us connect with our customers in a more complete way than a traditional model.
You may be wondering, though, what headless eCommerce is and how it works. Here’s everything you need to know about this new eCommerce model and how to make the most of it.
Headless Business 101: What You Need to Know
In the traditional eCommerce framework, a store’s frontend (mostly its website) and backend are closely linked. On the other hand, headless commerce separates the store’s frontend (its “head”) from its backend (its “tail”).
This lets us set up and show off the front (or head) of the store in different ways, including through social commerce, digital marketplaces, and the Internet of Things (IoT). The best thing about headless eCommerce is that it can be changed in different ways to give each customer a unique experience.
To do this, a set of APIs or a separate layer is set up between the platform’s front end and its back end. The API can digitally change the whole experience for any user, depending on the devices they use and the metrics they want to reach.
Why you, too, should like headless commerce
Do you know that more than 60% of retailers have moved to or are planning to move to a headless framework? So, if you’re not sure if this is the right solution for you, you might want to look at its main benefits.
Doing things faster
One of the most important reasons to use headless commerce has to do with how well your store works overall. Since the frontend and backend would no longer be tied together, your store would load faster.
Flexible frontend
As I’ve already said, headless eCommerce can help you give your customers a customizable experience. This will make you stand out from the rest and give your customers a more unique experience.
Better ways of marketing
Using headless commerce solutions is also important because it lets you add different marketing plugins. With these tools, you can reach out to each customer at a different point in the marketing funnel.
Other things to think about
Aside from that, you could use a microservice architecture in your store with the headless framework. It will also make your online store more secure overall and give you full control over it.
How to Put Headless Commerce Solutions Into Practice
Headless commerce is all about building a framework based on your audience’s needs and their experiences. To do this, you must connect your CMS (Content Management System) to the APIs you need (Application Programming Interfaces).
Pay attention to making the back end scalable.
The first thing you need to do is find out if your backend supports headless eCommerce architecture or not. The good news is that most content management systems and eCommerce providers like Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and Magento support it. If your commerce platform doesn’t support vertical scalability, you might want to move your store to a different service.
Add the necessary APIs.
For headless commerce solutions to work, you need to add a layer of APIs between your store’s front end and back end. There are many Angular JS, React, and other APIs that can be changed to fit your needs. With these solutions, you can do A/B testing and scale the front end of your store based on many different settings.
Check your APIs and how they work on the front end.
Once you’ve put the APIs into place, you might want to test them on different platforms. To do this, you can just use platforms like web, social, AR, voice assistant, mobile, chatbots, and so on to access the solutions that have already been put in place. Before putting headless commerce solutions in the hands of your customers, make sure you test them thoroughly.
Changing from a traditional model to one without a head might seem hard at first, but it will be worth it in the long run. You can work on the transition on your own, get help from a professional, or use solutions that are already out there.
Examples of Headless Commerce That Can Help You Learn
You might already know that the headless commerce framework is being used by thousands of eCommerce brands and stores. Here are some of the best examples of headless commerce that will help you understand how the model is used in the real world.
Nike
Nike was probably one of the first companies to offer mobile customers headless commerce solutions. The company used technologies like React SPA and Node JS to give mobile users a “headless” experience. This made a huge difference in how many customers bought from handheld devices.
Dunkin’ Donuts
One of the best things about a headless approach is that it makes it easy to grow our business on many different platforms. This is also what Dunkin’ Donuts did when it connected its back-end systems to voice assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistance. For example, you can just use Google Assistance to place orders from Dunkin’ Donuts directly through its AI-powered features.
Koala
If you are from Australia, you may already know about Koala, which is a brand of furniture for the home. Even though the brand is already making a lot of money, the company wanted to grow its overall reach. To do this, they used Shopify Plus and came up with web apps that were just for that. It helped them divide their customers into groups based on the platforms they used and other factors. By giving their audience a unique and personalized experience, they could easily increase the number of people who buy from them.
Home Depot
One of the most untapped markets right now is augmented reality. But if you want to try it out, it’s easy to add reliable headless commerce solutions to the front end of your store. Home Depot did the same thing a while ago when they added 3D images and augmented reality features to their app. Users can now just choose a product and see how it would look in any room before buying it.
Sephora
Sephora is one of the biggest brands in the world for beauty and lifestyle, and it has also adopted the headless commerce framework. For example, you can get a full list of their products if you go to their Instagram or Facebook page. You can order things from their social media accounts instead of going to their website if you want to. This was made possible by decoupling the backend of their store and integrating it with social platforms using a “headless” approach.
With dropship-empire, you can take your store to the next level.
In addition to adding headless commerce solutions to your store, you can also ask dropship-empire for help to make it run better. It is the official dropshipping tool from AliExpress. It is easy to set up and has a lot of features.
- On dropship-empire, you can look through tens of thousands of different suppliers in many different categories.
- With its Supplier finder feature, you can instantly choose the most profitable and best-rated supplier for any product.
- Integration with other tools like Shopify, WooCommerce, and Wix is very easy.
- dropship-empire is free to use and has useful features like the ability to bundle products, buy in bulk, or manage a store.
- You can also automate things with dropship-empire by using its features, such as automatic tracking or order status or syncing tracking numbers.
- Your turn!
So, that’s it! After reading this guide, I’m sure you’ll know more about headless commerce and what it can do for you. Since you might not be able to grow your store horizontally with the traditional eCommerce model, you might want to switch to headless eCommerce.
You can look into the examples of headless commerce I gave above to learn more about their model. You can also check out dropship-empire to improve your dropshipping store and keep track of everything in one place. It’s one of the best dropshipping solutions out there, and it’s easy to add to different shopping platforms.
FAQs
- How does headless eCommerce work?
- It is a popular eCommerce architecture in which the store’s front end and back end are not connected. This lets us make our store work on more platforms and give users a more personalized experience.
What are the benefits of commerce without a leader?
A headless architecture can help you grow your business’s overall reach. It can also help you get more out of your marketing plans, turn more leads into customers, and serve customers faster.
What are some good tools for headless commerce?
Shopify Plus, BigCommerce, Magento, Gumroad, and Commerce JS are some of the most popular and reliable tools you can use for a headless approach. You can also look into API-focused solutions like Apicart, Foxy, Vue, Shogun, and Bloom Reach.