The world of digital commerce is evolving rapidly and businesses are constantly looking for new ways to stay ahead of their competitors in an increasingly competitive environment. One of the most significant developments in digital commerce technology in recent years is digital commerce solutions based on headless architecture.
In this blog post, I have compiled the benefits of headless ecommerce and the reasons why it could be a better choice than a solution based solely on a traditional digital commerce platform.
1. More flexibility and customization opportunities for ecommerce development
One of the main advantages of headless ecommerce is greater flexibility and adaptability. In a traditional digital commerce platform, the user interface design and user experience (frontend/UI) is tightly integrated with the backend. This can make it difficult to make changes to the user interface.
In a headless architecture, the user interface and backend are separated, giving businesses much more flexibility to customize the interface design, user experience and functionality without affecting the underlying code of the digital commerce store.
2. Headless ecommerce improves page performance
The loading speed of a digital commerce’s pages has a direct impact on the customer’s shopping experience and, consequently, the conversion rate. Slow pages increase the risk of customers leaving and abandoning their shopping carts. According to a study by Portend, every second spent loading a page reduces conversion rate by 0.3%. The loading speed of the main page, the login page, and the checkout page are particularly important (source).
Other significant advantages of the headless ecommerce platform include shorter loading times and better performance when compared to a traditional Magento 2 digital commerce platform, for example. The technology enables faster and more efficient online shopping, which is crucial for creating a seamless shopping experience for customers.
3. The opportunity to try out new features with a lower threshold
Headless ecommerce also allows businesses to easily test new features and functionality in the digital commerce without affecting the stability and security of the underlying system. This is particularly valuable in today’s ever-changing competitive landscape, where you need to remain agile, and adapt to rapidly changing market conditions.
Headless ecommerce offers a number of advantages over traditional digital commerce platforms.
A headless ecommerce solution allows businesses to quickly test new features and how they work in their business without taking too much time and wasting large amounts of development hours.
4. Integration with third-party services and tools is easier with Headless ecommerce
The headless architecture also makes it easier to integrate the digital commerce with third-party services and tools, such as personalization software or recommendation algorithms. A headless digital commerce solution allows businesses to more easily integrate these services and tools into their digital commerce without having to worry about how they affect the code on the backend.
For example, digital commerce search and AI-based product recommendations can be more flexibly integrated into a headless architecture than a traditional digital commerce solution. Among other things, our partner Klevu has already created a ready-made library for headless implementations.
5. Enabling better data security
While headless technology does not automatically make a digital commerce secure by itself, if done correctly, it increases the chances of improving the data security of your digital commerce. The backend is self-contained, and can therefore be hidden from the network. This reduces the attack surfaces and exposure to potential attack against, for example, business logic, databases and transactions.
Security updates are faster when you can focus on updating only the necessary components instead of the entire system. In addition, the headless architecture allows for a lighter UI/UX layer than, for example, traditional Magento, reducing the exposure to vulnerabilities.
Summary
Headless ecommerce offers a number of advantages over traditional digital commerce platforms. While the architecture is not the best solution for every digital commerce, it is worth considering with your digital commerce provider how the technology could help your business in the future. Consumers value a personalized and seamless user experience, and the use of headless ecommerce can be a way to achieve these goals.
Read more
State-of-the art headless technology secures the future of your digital commerce
Making digital commerce accessible by 2025 – what you need to know about the changes to the Digital Services Act
Digital commerce trends 2023
Accessibility Directive and Digital Services Act
