eCommerce
Solution
Summary: Choosing the right approach for backend and frontend development of headless commerce is essential. While some offer great customization others offer unparalleled APIs, integrations, and scalability.
Headless e-commerce is an eCommerce solution that helps in the process of building stores on different platforms including smartphones, voice assistants, and other digital devices.
It creates an architecture with no back end as the APIs connect the systems, providing room for adding CRMs, customer services, payment systems, and several others.
When it comes to headless commerce, it means the commerce solution can be developed with the requirements of the business in mind. As the front and back ends are separated in headless commerce, you need to hire Shopify Headless developers to create customized, flexible digital stores.
Approaches to Creating Backend of the Headless Commerce
Here are some of the backend creation approaches that you can explore:
For Custom solutions
Suppose, you run your store on a custom-made eCommerce platform, which has been over ten years in the making. For such businesses, the migration to a headless commerce system is simply a stepping stone to progress and the future.
However, for full adoption, an existing traditional eCommerce platform would need to have a microservice architecture, which the headless will be built upon. It does not matter the coding language used to build your store. To re-engineer it into a headless architecture entails untethering the store structures and then placing each of them inside docker containers, which is an intricate and daunting task. This requires you to hire a headless commerce developer to ensure proper customization.
Using Third-party platforms
Magento Adobe
Adobe Commerce, which is otherwise referred to as Magento falls under the umbrella of Adobe’s products. It helps in creating commerce experiences across multiple channels and thus can be used in different industries and business models. Hence, for any personalized shopping experience, Adobe Commerce has a built-in strength due to integration with other units of the Adobe Suite such as Analytics, Creative Cloud, and Experience Manager.
The platform is completely scalable and extendable thus allowing businesses to embrace new technologies in their ecommerce stores even if such technologies are quite new. Continuous innovation, especially technology, can also be a drawback to the adoption of this system. However, the most prevalent issue with this platform is the TCO, or the total cost of ownership, people incur when employing suite-based e-commerce systems.
Sylius
Sylius is yet another open-source eCommerce platform. It works on a very scalable Symfony framework. The solution comprises autonomous modules and independent PHP libraries for specific functions in the course of the shopping process.
According to the official documentation, this headless eCommerce framework enables the development of microservice applications.
Shopware
In the discussion about the different open-source eCommerce solutions one can find, Shopware 6 has a particular emphasis on API. This technology is supported by VueJS and Symphony and is famed for its adaptability. It makes it possible to divide content up.
Template-based SaaS platform
Shopify
As one of the most sought-after mechanisms out there, Shopify has also joined the bandwagon and become a headless content management system. The GraphQL Storefront API allows for the development of fast and fun engaging websites built around a headless structure. Please note that upon exploring the headless options, you will need to have a minimum of the Shopify Plus version.
From the beginning, there have been limitations in the ability to customize, particularly about the headless platform, and like any other proprietary software limitations, limits are ever likely to remain. However, there are off-the-shelf options. This also explains why the eCommerce solution is considered ideal for such businesses that wish to reduce their time to market. This further explains why skilled freelancers are also allowed to see some codes in Shopify and modify them where necessary.
The headless integrative approach is also dependent on Hydrogen which is Shopiy’s React-based framework and Oxygen which is a global hosting solution. With the help of this library, skilled experts may develop headless commerce solutions packages that could help to fit particular business requirements. Hire Shopify Hydrogen developers to ensure secure hosting across the world.
Big Commerce
BigCommerce is a well-known SaaS headless eCommerce software enabling users to create and expand their businesses with ease and comfort. It provides useful features like superior performance, customization, user-friendliness, and simplicity. They operate across 120 nations and work with the leaders in headless content management systems. It provides you with hundreds of templates and designs ready for your storefront.
Salesforce Commerce Cloud
Salesforce Commerce Cloud is a component of the Salesforce product line, which provides a flexible commerce platform over the Salesforce CRM.
Due to this integration, connecting with other products in the suite is smooth, effortlessly enabling one to take advantage of the entire Salesforce ecosystem.
With Salesforce Commerce, your e-commerce stores can adopt API-first commerce and improve the overall shopping experience for their customers.
Furthermore, e-commerce stores can make use of the extensive library of ready-made integrations provided by Salesforce to improve their websites and design mobile applications.
SAP Commerce Cloud
SAP Commerce Cloud is an advanced e-commerce software that allows companies to execute communication, customer service, and sales activities on various platforms. All the product information is stored in a media-neutral organized way so that they can control and prepare it efficiently.
Businesses can build and operate online stores on various channels, offering customized services by analyzing their targets’ browsing and purchasing history, behavior, preferences, etc. The integrated solution, in addition to SAP, implements other systems and provides the possibility to analyze sales, interaction, and custom behavior to enable effective management decisions.
Utilizing a SaaS Solution
Fabric
Fabric is the ultimate solution available in the market today. To support this, it was awarded the most inventive 2020 B2B Retail startup for its efforts in headless commerce for D2C and B2B brands. The entire business can be launched on the platform in a matter of weeks without re-platforming. It is a force multiplier that is tested and has been known to increase digital revenue for retail businesses utilizing e-commerce by up to 3x.
As the tool is growth-oriented, it can be employed better by already existing fast-growing businesses with ambitious targets.
Elastic Path
Elasticpath is a next-generation headless eCommerce platform with the capability to design a composable headless commerce solution. This technology is a combination of two architectures, Jamstack (JavaScript, APIs & Markup) and MACH (microservices, APIs, Cloud and Headless) to keep up with the market changes that are taking place now and into the future. Because of this, brands can see the potential of the innovations that will come in the future.
It also assists you in onboarding clients easily and increasing revenues courtesy of the experience management module.
Commercelayer
Commerce Layer is an innovative platform, especially designed for developers, to develop modern eCommerce business stores. You can build portals from the ground up, combine your own POS software, and add eCommerce functionality to mobile devices, voice devices, wearables, and so forth with Commerce Layer.
Additionally, it has some more incredible advantages such as developing a multi-vendor eCommerce and establishing subscription-based models for your enterprise. It contains sophisticated functionalities for the multi-vendor type of businesses. However, the dashboard is quite complicated for novices even though there are updates within short periods.
Commercetools
Commercetools not only offers headless commerce architecture but it is also an omnichannel platform as it provides cloud-based POS solutions for both B2B and B2C businesses.
The platform supports various touchpoint eCommerce experiences such as mobile applications, web pages, VR, and voice assistance in an API-first approach that separates the front end and back end for developing customized solutions.
There is neither SQL nor any other modification necessary since the complete set of APIs does everything required and comes with different interfaces for inventory control that feature tracking, adjustment, multi-store management, returns, and other aspects of inventory.
Commercetools offers payment strategies using CyberSource, content using Contentstack, and front-end development using Frontstatic.
Approaches to Creating Frontend of the Headless Commerce
Let’s go through the main approaches for frontend development:
For Regular Browsers
Typically, a progressive framework is utilized to develop the presentation layer for conventional browsers. Such frameworks, for example, include react.js, angular js, or vue.js. These tools are good enough for the development of modern front-ends of personal computers as well as mobile phones (they are often developed as two separate applications).
For Mobile Devices
The presentation layer for smartphones can for example be in the form of native applications. In the majority of cases, Android applications are coded in Java and Kotlin while IoS applications are in Swift.
For Smart Speakers
To speak about smart speakers in general, the Google Assistant interface is designed through Dialog Flow (a service that is essential for making sense of human language) and with the help of Actions on Google. As for the other smart speakers, each has a specific development ecosystem.
Conclusion
Headless commerce offers the possibility of altering different components of a website structure as a standalone system, thus eliminating any need to focus on the design part and then cut back to the script, this being done when altering a single section of the site.
Regardless of whether you own a Salesforce, Magento, Shopify, or Bigcommerce, CartCoders specialists are ready to assist with the headless architecture implementation.