The Future of Headless Commerce in 2021

[farwa mustaqeem]

Novel disease Covid-19 has changed every aspect of the living hood and so is commerce. All the trends of online buying and selling have been transformed rapidly. Many brands have evolved, fulfilling the latest demands of users. The growth of such startups and brands depends on how they deploy experience to the target market, showcase themselves and facilitate the user. As the name depicts, it’s not wrong to say that commerce has forfeited its head. Moreover, headless commerce has unfolded as the hottest topic in eCommerce nowadays.

What is Headless Commerce?

Headless commerce is dissociating from the front-end and back-end in an eCommerce system. Now brands are autonomous in developing whatever they wish to develop by taking advantage of novel tools and technologies. It works by providing some APIs to developers so that they can directly develop the front end for eCommerce stores (both web applications and mobile applications). Headless Commerce allows the online business to enrich its user experience without any disinclination.

Ins and outs of Headless Commerce

Architecture

Putting it in a nutshell, the commerce application programming interface is the game-changer for headless commerce. It aims to make all the content and data available to all platforms by focusing on background processes. Infrastructure, security, and all other e-commerce functionalities are performed invisibly in the background of the application. A headless CMS API calls aids in connecting both the front end and back end.

Features

Headless Commerce enables:

- Liberty of indicating framework

- Multilingualism

- Organizing digital assets (images, videos and text files, etc.)

- Scalability

- Modeling, architecting, and approval of content

- Augmenting roadmap and integration

Pros

- Digitalization and innovation in business comfort the customers in a way that they can access all their requirements with quality services without any friction. This fact makes headless commerce a necessity.

- Headless commerce has transformed the capabilities of traditional models. Businesses can market themselves and increase reachability using every possible channel to maximize sales, interaction, and competitive advantages more importantly.

- As headless commerce platforms can function independently, the developers also gain an edge in implementing custom designs.

Cons

- It's expensive as it requires large investments to develop instant infrastructures.

- Instinctive functionalities of e-commerce platforms can be limited after configuring headless commerce.

- Headless commerce is not only expensive but is also tiresome to manage. It's not suitable for small teams.

Trending Platforms

Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Magento, Shopify Plus, BigCommerce, and WooCommerce are the most trending headless commerce platforms. Let’s explore what makes them unique.

- Salesforce Commerce Cloud is a SaaS(cloud-based software as service) solution designed for e-commerce. Commerce cloud supports scalability, optimization, and artificial intelligence. Hence, it generates a highly personalized user experience and boosts B2C e-commerce. Key functionalities include the integration of all social media channels, full mobile-first suite, instant, and right customer insights, boost organic traffic, and generates more revenue. Above all, its type ahead (search guidance) feature helps the customers/shoppers to find whatever they want to buy from all over the globe and pay bills with just one single click.

- Magento is an open-source platform enabling online businesses to implement dynamic shopping carts, control functionality, outlook, and content of shopping stores. It helps the business to grow by providing impactful marketing and catalog tools. SEO is another amazing feature of Magento.

- Shopify targets businesses ranging from small to medium scale only. Wherever Shopify plus supports the large enterprises also. Fundamental services of both versions are the same but Shopify plus offers more load balancing capability.

- BigCommerce is the best platform to implement and maintain the front end of online shopping stores. It is abundant with built-in functionalities and resources so it suits large enterprises the best.

- WooCommerce is a customizable eCommerce platform built on WordPress. It is completely open-source which means you can modify and customize anything and everything. Because you have complete control, you can add unlimited products and users, and take unlimited orders.

The Future of Headless Commerce in 2021:

The future of headless commerce relies on how businesses indulge emerging technologies (Voice search and IoT etc.) and enhance user-friendliness. Tech gadgets have enabled the customers with innovations. They want to have smart solutions, frictionless and instant purchases so it's important to keep pace with revolutionary trends in business and strive for a tech-enabled future.

The best way to predict the future is to create it. With the tech expertise that we have at Bizmia, the stage is set for greater things. Let’s talk about how we can make you materialize the future that you have envisioned.