Where to start with headless commerce? A brief explanation for beginners or confused ones

Headless commerce and headless technology took over all the web buzz, thereby creating a lot of misinterpretation and a dose of confusion. Here we will briefly lay out the origins of headless technology, how it started, how it goes, a basic premise, and how it addresses different scale eCommerce. 

Headless Commerce 101

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How did headless technology kick-off?

To understand why headless technology is gaining widespread popularity, it's worth taking a step back to the origins and context of the tech revolution. Headless technology accelerated with the broad smartphone adoption when scrolling and swiping became mainstream. With online access at hand came a change in consumers’ behavior, raising expectations for presence, alignment, performance, and accessibility. The first ideas of headless technology solutions started to knit. It quickly became obvious for monoliths, designed to handle a single channel, that implementing a small change without compromising the entire system takes a serious amount of time and resources. This is how the very first spark of what we call now a headless technology popped out.

The beyond desktop and mobile-first era quickly arrived, requiring a constructive re-think of the technology approach on the eCommerce scene. To become responsive, the monolithic software needed a decay and steady set up of commerce storefront that would set the pole position for swift activities. The question of going custom is the only way to arise, and the re-think of technology that could work as a decoupled system started to get in shape. Once again headless technology became a reasonable idea.

The wide spectrum of changes that demanded inclusion embraced internationalization, and alignment with language specifications. New integrations with 3rd party services, maintenance, and quick deployment at the front became a burden for complex eCommerce stores. Multi-screen displays, adjusting the layout to the natural handholds and updates became an integral part of the tech inclusion. A growing number of aspects quickly clarified the answer, providing a confident path for headless technology. It doesn't end there because a well-oiled machine has to work in harmony with Google algorithms, Core Web Vitals in particular, and the limited patience of online shoppers. 

All of the aspects that suddenly had to be taken into account multiplied, making monoliths commercially unviable. Continuous discovery, learning, and development became a vital part for every conscious industry player willing to thrive and compete in the market. Hence, specialization and domain knowledge became the key to cooperation.

[To dive deeper into the roots of the present eCommerce headless technology composition, below is a short review of the tech revolution launched in 2007, if you’re fine with the information above, you can skip the next part and jump into stats] 

A brief history of the time when everything changed 

To better outline the context, let’s quickly jump to 2007, a landmark when everything was reinvented. It was a year when Facebook went global, iPhone was introduced to the world, and the first code was committed to GitHub. The list goes on, Twitter, Kindle, Android, and I​​BM’s AI-powered system Watson went public, Airbnb was founded, and Google bought YouTube. It was also the time when public cloud computing emerged (Amazon Web Services started in 2006). Finally, the API course was formulated, and microservices were born. 

As technology has led the change, the consumer's behavioral patterns have evolved, and the way business and marketing is done has been transformed. The explosive technological boost was due to the cracking of the barrier of high entry, processing and storage costs, which made complexity accessible. Data collection has become easier and segmentation more complex. 

Still, the snowball effect of the technological boom generated many opportunities but also made it difficult for a single actor to keep up with every new release, update, and implementation. Time began to play an even more important role, hence building from scratch (or dealing with monoliths) was replaced by forming from ready-made, future-proofed components.

How is headless technology reflected in figures?

According to recent data The State of eCommerce 2021, Kantar&Catalyst shared:

• 66% of online purchasers value convenience over price; thus the shopping experience should be practical and smooth

• 42% of professionals indicate that improving the user experience will be the biggest opportunity in eCommerce marketing in the next twelve months

• 30% eCommerce professionals declare that creative content options will play an important role in revenue. 

• 56% of millennials and 54% of Gen X online purchasers scroll past the Product Detailed Page, searching for the relevant pieces of information.

• 57% of shoppers favor shopability - the ability retail’s environment to translate consumer demand into a purchase, this includes shaping UX and influencing with content and performance

Note: The surveyed professionals also indicated a shift from a search for ideal solutions to a testing mentality, aggregating many small wins over time. 

In addition, according to Baymard Institute 75% of shopping cart abandonment is due to slow website load.

Essentially, headless technology aims to respond quickly to such arising obstacles.

Differences between microservices and headless technology

Having explained the reasoning behind disrupted architecture in eCommerce, now it’s time to clarify what are the differences between microservices and headless technology.

First and most important, headless technology means decoupling the front-end from the back-end and incorporating the API-first paradigm. Microservices, on the other hand, allow the platform and service-oriented architecture to be fully decoupled. 

The whole idea of microservices is that each of them has an API that forms a communication protocol by agreeing to a contract that specifies how the players understand each other. So, it is clear what to expect from each side. Following this reasoning, almost everything can be "agreed" among different parties.

Having established the agreements, it becomes more efficient for the entire eCommerce architecture to apply changes and manage operational and marketing-based activities. Headless technology allows marketers (or merchants in general) to actively manage the front without engaging development forces.

As headless technology advances at the pace, and 3rd party apps flex to provide well-tailored functionalities. With each advancement, a greater spectrum of capabilities and freedom is provided by headless technology.

What are the key benefits of headless technology?

Establishing a headless technology unties merchants’ hands, allowing them to act without restraint immediately. From a big picture perspective, decoupling the system allows for unfettered operations at the frontend without affecting the backend. 

Headless technology provides advanced tools to create visually pleasing, well-performing web experiences

This is practical knowledge for any representative working at the front of eCommerce. With the API-first approach, merchants can test new headless technologies and build their own tool kit, fitting demanding needs. Headless technology permits flexibility in content and experience delivery via connected preferable CMS.

A headless technology does not block operations, whether it is a launch of a new product line, associated brand, or a new touchpoint addressing a different audience. Via a single tool connected to headless architecture merchants receive tones of freedom to deploy multiple sites and touchpoints. Thanks to headless technology all actions happen fast, in days, not months, without burdening the devs with tedious activities. Headless technology space for better omnichannel shopping experiences. 

Headless technology assures flexibility and balance for developers

IT administrators are assigned to support the business as it scales. With the growth come new challenges that need to be swiftly approached to maintain performance. Scaling a monolith platform is problematic because of the joined nature. Headless technology future-proofs the architecture, so continuous iteration and innovation are secured. Flexibility and freedom of choice of the eCommerce platform that serves best one’s interests become easy, as the eComm engine can work freely with any frontend and 3rd party extensions. A distributed system, backed by headless technology, prevents delays that would arise because of the number of deploys needed in a monolith. Thanks to the decoupled nature, headless technology eliminates the associated risk of putting the entire shop down.

Headless technology allows to better distribute the budget

The budgeting aspect is always a viable matter. Having an insufficient everything-in-one platform over the years of functioning causes biases and reveals hidden costs of out-of-specification supplies. Extra changes start to irritate and absorb resources, wrecking the annual budget.

Due to the flexibility provided by headless technology, tech debt decreases. Thanks to this, business executives and marketers can easily follow and forecast how the money is spent.

Now it's time to dispel the growing confusion about headless technology. 

What is the cost of headless technology?

TL;DR: it depends.

Applying headless technology means decoupling the front-end from the backend. And further improvements happen swiftly at the front of eCommerce. The backend could remain monolithic. One can inject headless technology no matter the eCommerce platform (could be Magento, Shopify, custom, or any other online shopping environment). The scale of the undertaking mainly depends on the held platform and the results the merchant wants to achieve. So, the total cost and time needed for headless technology implementation with a well-matched set of tools can be executed within a couple of weeks.

Read the article Headless commerce cost

Does headless technology mean building from scratch?

As mentioned above, here to elaborate on this point, it varies whether a merchant wants to build a custom frontend and connect it to an eCommerce platform or use the frontend platform available on the market. You can make the best use of future-proofed solutions and prosper well, faster and in a cost-effective way. 

Although we are talking about a headless technology here, to question the logic a bit, headless must have an environment that binds the entire structure together and is responsible for proper and stable operations. So, headless technology should be nourished with a bodiless structure.

To better understand this sort of confusion - it’s all about establishing a headless technology standard, a middleware that enables easy integration. The one that allows fast and convenient fitting of various tools supporting the storefront. And that was the main reasoning behind Vue Storefront. VSF is a missing link between headless platforms, 3rd party applications that future-proof eCommerce’s performance and flexibility.

Bodiless frontend to settle headless technology

To make a swift shift to headless technology, merchants can apply a cost- and time-effective approach. Vue Storefront grants principles incorporated and supported by the MACH Alliance . It is a modular and API-first frontend driven by headless technology principles.

VSF supports boundless operations at the front while remaining open for further customization. It does not become a blocker for advanced activities in the later growth phases. Besides, Vue Storefront stands at the forefront of IT integration, guaranteeing fast and stable further implementation of new headless technologies. It all happens without compromising performance, thereby reducing unnecessary tech humps at the front. 

Why apply a bodiless storefront for headless technology? 

Certain standards became a necessity for fast-moving headless technology demands. The answer lies in issues of future-proofing, warranty supply, time-to-market, and lost opportunity cost. Simplifying, without a well-thought-out and featured with default standard functionalities bodiless storefront, implementation of each of the preferred Headless CMS and other headless technologies for eCommerce may happen individually. However, the headless transition then extends from extra days to extra months, thus delaying a fast and effective launch. As a consequence, follows the cost of maintenance and continued interoperability with subsequent updates. Bodiless storefront assures quick integration and provides freedom of choice when setting a preferable headless technology kit. 

What degree of headless freedom is Vue Storefront referring to?

To work in sync with the eCommerce market and headless technology in general, Vue Storefront can be integrated with key market platforms, Shopify, Commercetools, Magento, Commerce cloud, Shopware, BigCommerce, Elasticpath, Spryker, Sylius, and About you Commerce Suite. Setting a well-crafted frontend foundation Vue Storefront goes further. It can be connected with headless CMSs (Storyblock, Contentstack, Amplience, Contentful, Bloomreach, Magnolia, and Lexas CMS), payments (checkout, Adyen, PayPal, Braintree, Stripe, Klarna, ApplePay, GooglePay, and Mollie), and 3rd party services (Algolia, constructor.io, Talon.one, Cloudinary, Webeyez, Klevu, or custom) and new integrations are on the way. 

Learn more about our integrations from live projects:

Love Crafts - How VSF enhances commercetools 

Netatmo - a strong lift-up for Magento

  Pure Daily Care - Flexing Shopify with Vue Storefront

Vue Storefront platform is on its way to support the further headless technology development

Having established a well-functioning front for headless technology, VSF decided to take one more step ahead and develop a platform that offers an optimized hosting environment. VSF platform is a cloud, an infrastructural component of Vue Storefront, that, aside from offering an optimized hosting environment, provides other added-value services. All within an IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) application to easily set up, manage, control and monitor VSF-based projects. 

A bodiless frontend is a well-tailored ensemble for headless technology 

Bodiless frontend for headless technology is a hero no one asked for but everyone needed. In a world of rapid change, limited attention, and aiming high well-paired modularity becomes a stable supplement for performance, granting at the same time flexibility. Vue Storefront enables headless transition with superb technology for any player. At the same time, as hungry for more storefront visionaries, we work on an even broader set of solutions well-matched with headless technologies and developments for different scale eCommerce.