Nowadays, the appearance of many technologies will blow our minds, and headless technology is one of them. People will find it hard to understand what headless technology is. This blog post will discuss headless technology’s definition and applicability, especially the headless eCommerce website.
Contents
Headless Technology
1. What is headless technology?
Headless technology is a concept that has lately appeared. The name comes from the way that headless technology works. This technology disengages the front-end (head) from the back-end (body) layer.
In simpler terms, the traditional website has its front-end and back-end, which means if there is a change in one part, it will directly affect the other. The headless site has a different architecture; its front-end will be a separate part from the back-end. For the communication of the front-end and back-end, headless websites use APIs.
2. Major benefits of headless
- Flexibility
We all know that millennials – the primary target customers of eCommerce have high requirements for the shopping experience. For example, the interface of a website must be up-to-date, user-friendly, and can handle complicated transactions simultaneously. Therefore, headless technology does it so well.
Without disrupting the business infrastructure, we can easily update the customer view. The reason is that, with headless technology, the frontend and backend of a website are separated.
- Personalization
All the eCommerce site owners aim to customize the visitor experience. Everybody wants to let the customers have their own unique experience rather than a broad experience, or website personalization. However, the best way to create it is to start experimenting with the changes.
Headless technology has its own strengths, mainly because of the separation of the frontend and backend. It allows people to experiment without any disruption to the website.
- Speed
With the adaptiveness of headless architecture, we do not have to change everything on both front- and back-end. Each time the changes happen on the frontend, it doesn’t mean the change has to occur in the backend. That’s why a headless website is much faster than usual.
- Customization
As mentioned above, the headless allows us to experiment and customize without affecting the websites’ operation.
Headless Application In eCommerce
At first, headless technology is only used to create headless software and then headless computers. Most recently, headless technology is applied to websites.
Progressive Web App is the most outstanding one among all headless technology applicabilities, especially in the eCommerce niche.
1. Headless PWA
In 2015, Google introduced PWA, which made the watershed of headless technology in the eCommerce industry. PWA’s appearance changes the standard of the eCommerce websites and brings it to a new level.
Let’s see how headless PWA benefits eCommerce businesses:
- Cross-platform
The unique thing about PWA is the ability to work cross-platform. It can work fluently and responsively across types of devices & browsers.
On the one hand, PWA appears on mobile devices in the like-app interface and feels. The difference is PWA is much lighter and accounts for much fewer devices’ memory space.
On the other hand, PWA still appears like a regular website on desktop browsers, but there are still many differences.
- Blazing Fast Speed & Offline Ability
As mentioned above, PWA appears like regular websites on the desktop, but the difference is the performance and the ability to work offline. In a normal condition, PWA is two to three times faster than a regular webpage. Moreover, users can even interact with the progressive web app without an Internet connection.
- Rich User Experience
The foremost strength of the PWA is the interface and the experiences it brings to users. With the headless architecture, there is no limitation in developing a headless eCommerce website, and the developers are free to try out all of their ideas. Thus, the website interface’s diversity can quickly meet all customers’ requirements and bring them a richer experience than a regular site.
- Conversion Optimized
With all of the rich experience that headless PWA provides the users, it is not a surprise that they can optimize the conversion rate. With an online store, the conversion rate is the most important thing.
- Cost Saving
Creating a Progressive Web App is much more affordable instead of building an eCommerce website and a native app. For example, an online store might cost $3,000, and the app mainly requires at least $10,000. Meanwhile, a website integrated with PWA technology would cost around $5,000.
2. Headless Magento 2
Like headless PWA, applying headless technology to Magento 2 is making the frontend and backend work independently.
There are various applications of headless Magento 2.
Firstly, we can use any platform for the UI while Magento’s API calls the store functionality. For example, Magento 2 is still used as a platform to manage all of our business operations while using WordPress as the CMS.
Secondly, we can integrate PWA into Magento websites thanks to the headless architecture. The PWA Storefront, which is often based on modern Javascript frameworks (e.g., ReactJs, VueJS), will supplant the Magento frontend and conjoin with the Magento backend via API.
Examples Of Headless eCommerce Websites
It’s a bit confusing because we only talk about headless eCommerce websites but have not mentioned any. Here are some brands that applied the headless technology to their e-businesses:
- Topps Tiles
- ME+EM
- Oliver Bonas
- Eleganza
- Zadig & Voltaire
Wrapping Up
It’s undeniable that headless technology brings many benefits and positive impacts to the eCommerce field.
If you are making up your mind to create a powerful headless eCommerce website, contact Tigren now. We’re here to answer any question you might have and help you to build the store you desire.
Read More:
Headless Website: Must Read Guides Of A Vital Business Trend
Headless Technology Dictionary: All Must-read Definitions In 5 Minutes
