Headless commerce is an eCommerce architecture in which the frontend and backend are decoupled. Learn why headless commerce is the architecture of choice for many top businesses.
Headless commerce is an eCommerce architecture in which the frontend and backend are decoupled. The frontend of your eCommerce experience is customer-facing. It’s the user interface customers engage with on your website, app, or another medium. The backend of your eCommerce operation is the business logic layer – your site’s structure, systems, data, and logic.
At the center of a decoupled, headless commerce architecture are headless commerce APIs. These APIs are software interfaces that help your frontend and backend talk to each other. With headless commerce, your brand can deliver unique customer experiences from best-of-breed business solutions.
Headless commerce is an eCommerce architecture in which the front-end and back-end are decoupled. The front-end of your eCommerce experience is customer-facing. It’s the user interface customers engage with on your website, app, or another medium. The back-end of your eCommerce operation is the business logic layer – your site’s structure, systems, data, and logic. At the center of a decoupled, headless commerce architecture are headless commerce APIs. These APIs are software interfaces that help your front-end and back-end talk to each other. With headless commerce, your brand can deliver unique customer experiences from best-of-breed business solutions.
A headless architecture is when the presentation layer of an application is separated from back-end services. Headless architecture is achieved by adding application programming interfaces (APIs), allowing commerce functions to be accessed by any front end. Front-end developers can use these APIs to deliver customer experiences to any screen or connected device with any technology or customer experience platform they desire.
A headless architecture puts the creative and innovation power back in the hands of those responsible for the customer experience by enabling front-end developers to continuously iterate and evolve the customer experience without any dependency or impact on the back-end commerce platform.
This means faster release cycles with less regression testing and minimal risk of changes having disastrous, unintended consequences. Conversely, enhancements to back-end commerce functions can be deployed without fear of “breaking” the customer experience.
A headless commerce platform provides all the commerce services an organization needs to commerce-enable any application or customer experience. However, organizations must decide how they will build and deliver those customer experiences. Fortunately, a headless architecture provides the flexibility to use any application, such as a CMS (Content Management System), DXP (Digital Experience Platform) or, use any technology like Angular or React front-end frameworks to create compelling experiences.
The front-end application or technology of your choice will communicate with the headless Commerce platform through its APIs to access commerce data and services such as catalog content, pricing, and customer profile information.
Organizations using headless commerce aren’t forced into a single front-end approach and can instead select the best customer experience application or technology based on the experience they want to deliver and their organizational capabilities. For example, to create and deliver an online store, your mobile application team may choose to use React Native while the web team may opt to use a CMS application.
The advantages of headless commerce are significant, from elevated shopper experiences to reduced costs and dev and IT time and stress. The biggest benefits of headless commerce include...
Headless commerce architecture fosters flexibility. Your frontend and backend work independently at their own pace to create new user experiences and maintain the best existing user experiences.
Accelerate your team’s innovation and experiment with new ideas and touchpoints. Meet customer expectations without disrupting your IT team or compromising your backend technology.
Leverage customer information – such as past purchase data – to enable a personalized customer experience. Feature promotions, offers, and browsing capabilities relevant to every customer.
Power all customer touchpoints in a single platform. Create a unified commerce experience that allows customers to begin a purchase journey on one channel and finish it later on another.
Headless commerce eliminates long, costly development processes for every storefront change you want to make — which means you also reduce the expenses of development changes and work.
Separating the frontend from the backend results in commerce sites that are more resilient during spikes in traffic. The result is a consistently fast, high-performing site that produces conversions.
Composable commerce is distinct from headless commerce, as headless means decoupling the frontend presentation layer from the backend commerce engine layer. Composable commerce is an extension of headless technology, as the frontend and backend are decoupled and brands access a fully modular approach to solving business problems and arranging a tech stack.
Composable commerce technology is made up of MACH architecture, a combination of flexible technologies. Headless commerce is part of MACH architecture, which stands for microservices, API-first, cloud-native, and headless.
In a headless architecture, the presentation layer, or frontend, of an application is separated from backend services. Headless architecture uses APIs to connect frontend and backend, resulting in...
Headless means not being forced into a single frontend approach. You can use a CMS, DXP, or Angular or React frameworks for compelling experiences tied to catalog, pricing, customer profile, and more.
Frontend developers can use APIs to deliver fast, high-performing customer and shopping experiences to any screen or connected device, with any technology or customer experience platform they desire.
A headless architecture grants creative and innovation power to frontend developers to make changes to the customer experience without any dependency or impact on the backend commerce platform.
Changes are less likely to have disastrous, unintended consequences. Conversely, enhancements to backend commerce functions can be deployed without fear of “breaking” the customer experience.
APIs or application programming interfaces are designed to enable one application (such as your eCommerce platform) to expose services (such as order management, pricing information, catalog content, and customer profile data) to other applications. Learn about Elastic Path’s eCommerce APIs.
Headless commerce makes sense for your brand if you:
Yes. Security is at the forefront of any organization, big or small. Your customers trust you with personal information that, if in the wrong hands, leads to disaster. In the U.S. alone, someone becomes the victim of identity theft every 14 seconds. Cybercrime is on the rise as more personal details are stored and shared across devices and systems.
When choosing a headless commerce platform from Elastic Path, you are backed by rigorous security standards you won’t find with other providers. No other competitor has both SOC 2 Type II and HIPPA-enabled compliance.
It doesn’t have to be. In fact, while moving from one monolith to another is complicated, switching away from a monolithic platform to a headless commerce solution provides more flexibility.
With the flexibility of headless commerce, you are able to take a staggered approach to any headless commerce solution in which pieces are shifted over in stages, allowing you to slowly migrate to a fully headless solution.
A headless commerce approach has always been very appealing. We need to move quickly and figure things out fast. The architecture that we have in place with Elastic Path gives us the flexibility to pivot when needed. Kody Meyers Director of Product, Paro
A headless commerce approach has always been very appealing. We need to move quickly and figure things out fast. The architecture that we have in place with Elastic Path gives us the flexibility to pivot when needed.
The difference between headless commerce and traditional commerce comes down architecture, flexibility to make changes, and ability to offer elevated shopping experiences.
At the start of digital commerce, most customer browsed and placed orders online through a desktop browser experience. They didn't expect, or receive, elevated experiences. Businesses could have traditional, monolithic platforms that were tightly coupled to backend commerce functions. Even if the user experiences were clunky and desktop-specific, shoppers would still buy.
Now, buyers shop online through a variety of channels, and sometimes on their phone and computer and more all at once. Headless commerce decouples the frontend and the backend so that your business can offer different frontends for different channels. Plus, unlike traditional commerce, making changes to these frontends doesn't disrupt or require deep changes to your commerce backend. The result is better personalization and shopper experiences.
Traditional commerce architectures are tightly-bound and hard to change. Headless commerce architectures are flexible, customizable, and easy to change for developers and business users.
Want to learn more about the difference between headless commerce and traditional commerce? Read about the difference between headless and traditional to decide which approach is right for your business.
Discover the steps for getting started, how to implement your frontend, considerations for choosing the right platform, and more with our full guide.
Headless commerce provides a variety of features and capabilities to decision-makers in your business. Learn how headless commerce unlocks your team’s skills and creativity.
By deploying a headless commerce architecture, your director of eCommerce will be able to launch new product lines, brands, and touchpoints in weeks instead of months – using one single solution.
Merchandisers and marketers can quickly optimize content-rich experiences to cater to each customer’s personal needs and serve audiences want they want with AI-powered search and merchandising.
IT executives have to move fast without causing disruption. Headless architecture means faster, more scalable tech innovation, less time spent fixing bugs, and the ability to meet internal tech needs.
Developers deal with less technical debt and enjoy de-risked innovation with headless commerce. Changes to the backend don't disrupt the frontend, so devs spend time innovating, not putting out fires.
With headless commerce, business executives can run a faster, more profitable business without needing to replatform. This way, leaders get results now and add more commerce functionality over time.
You don’t have to buy. Elastic Path offers a headless commerce demo.
The advantages and benefits of headless commerce are undeniable, but it does come with considerations. Learn the two traditional challenges of a headless commerce approach.
A headless commerce architecture requires the frontend presentation layer and backend functionality layer to be separated, which means you may need dedicated frontend and backend developer resources.
Instead of having an all-in-one platform to orchestrate and monitor, your teams will monitor your solution. That means headless commerce can mean more upfront investment and ongoing orchestration.
Hear from our CTO about why an iPaaS and DBaaS can help as you move away from a traditional architecture, and how we offer the only iPaaS solution that is fully integrated in a commerce platform.