Are you Ready to Adopt a Headless Commerce Approach?

Retail eCommerce revenues worldwide are expected to grow to $6.5 trillion* in 2022, as per a report by Statista. The figure emphasizes enough the tremendous growth that the global eCommerce market is witnessing. But you need to question yourself if you are ready to move from a traditional to a headless eCommerce platform?

Are you ready to adopt a headless commerce architecture that enables you to operate with the most interactive solutions, an effective content-first approach, a greater flexibility, and scalability? If yes, this checklist is a must to overcome the challenges in your path to going headless.

Remember, it is difficult to take the giant leap without ripping the existing way of doing business. It is thus worth learning about headless eCommerce and implementing it.

Defining Headless Commerce

Contrary to traditional platforms, the presentation layer is decoupled from the eCommerce platform in a headless commerce structure. This leads to increased flexibility in content management and delivery, SEO, and user commerce experience.

However, the front-end stays connected to the backend systems. These backend systems comprise product information management (PIM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), and order management system (OMS), as well as other applications.

APIs are employed to deliver eCommerce services. They offer to your online business – solid, scalable, and secure solutions. These solutions are platform-agnostic, customizable, highly flexible, and ready for multiple omnichannel integrations.

Checklist for Headless eCommerce

Check #1

Platform Agnostic Approach

As your business transitions from the monolith model, you need to check if your eCommerce platform is neutral. It should allow vendors to create plug-ins and connections. Design the platform to enable multiple connections. Besides, check if the endpoints are opened and if they are bi-directional?

Remember, headless commerce platforms are front-end agnostic and can have multiple heads for the user to access content anytime, anywhere. APIs are used to publish the content on any device or channel. The front-end development team can thus use the tools and frameworks of their choice.

Check #2

API-centric Design

The future is API-centric, so isolating the content layer from the back end makes more sense. The decoupling needs an API-centric approach and a complete rethinking of integration strategies.

Focus more on API development and output in the product roadmap. Developer documentation also needs to be well-vetted. Seek highly efficient, unlimited API call volumes and multiple endpoints.

On separating your online business back end from the content layer, API agility and speed become critical. The aim here is to deliver a delightful customer experience while improving customer retention.

Check #3

PCI-compliant Checkout

eCommerce businesses need to look for a platform with the ability to manage PCI-compliant checkout. The platform should guarantee security without any compromises on the number of gateways and flexibility. Use hosted payment systems to reduce compliance-related efforts. You should be able to skip platform-powered PCI compliance through server-to-server checkout.

It is your sole responsibility to be PCI-compliant when using the Payments API. To do so, you need to consider your eCommerce store architecture and multiple channels of integrations.

Check #4

Catalog is Scalable

When product catalogs grow larger and highly complex, merchants outgrow content management system-based websites. Opt for an eCommerce platform with no catalog size restrictions and can tackle up to 600 options and variants per product.

The Magento Catalog module is one of Magento’s major frameworks, one of the best headless eCommerce platforms. As this module offers robust support for managing inventories of several product types, it helps to manage products, categories, and their attributes, besides the front-end display.

Check #5

Well-established Operational Processes

Headless commerce calls for re-evaluating and experimenting with your existing operational processes. This way, you can figure out which operations you need to improve. Test different approaches and try varied templates.

The idea here is to experiment with different backend search solutions while using the exact front-end search. Testing and optimization are crucial to winning over customers.

Your failure to clarify departmental autonomy and new borders of communication can be disastrous for the future.

Headless eCommerce Solutions are for:

• businesses with an existing content management solution that aim to grow their eCommerce offering.
• eCommerce portals that are heavy on content have media-rich content or that which changes constantly and quickly.
• eCommerce businesses that proliferate and intend to deliver highly personalized and interactive experiences with relevant and highly targeted content.
• Large conglomerates with multiple portfolio companies, divisions, or brands that need to practice content and experience governance.

Headless Commerce is the Future

Headless commerce solutions open a lot of avenues for your eCommerce store.
But these solutions need you to analyze how complex your existing eCommerce setup is and the scope for amplifying your sales channel agility. Check if your eCommerce portal needs advanced design, improved personalization, or effective cross-channel listing management.

Besides, adopting headless technology needs more developer attention than does a full-stack solution for your eCommerce business. Post analysis decide if going headless is the right step for your business in this era of eCommerce evolution.

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*Retail eCommerce Sales Worldwide (2014-2023), Statista