Commerce may be losing its head, but not its mind. Ecommerce sales in the US are predicted to hit the trillion-dollar mark by 2022, with online orders accounting for 20% of total retail sales by 2024.
Headless commerce is a type of ecommerce architecture that disassembles your back-end infrastructure from your front-end customer touchpoints.
The promise of headless commerce is the freedom to sell anywhere without design or development constraints—the world is your storefront. This requires a bit of creativity and a willingness to reimagine the architecture under the hood.
Data shows 64% of large enterprises are developing a bespoke solution to advance their ecommerce plans. A further 76% plan to adopt some form of headless tech within the next 12 months.
Headless has gotten plenty of hype recently, but it isn’t for everyone. To determine whether it’s the right architecture for your brand, you’ve got to understand what it means to go headless. This guide shares exactly that.
Table of Contents
- What is headless commerce?
- How does headless commerce work?
- What’s the difference between headless commerce and other CMS architectures?
- Is headless commerce right for me?
- Benefits of going headless
- Headless commerce trends
- The marriage between headless and omnichannel commerce
- Headless commerce examples
What is headless commerce?
Headless commerce is the architecture behind an ecommerce solution. It’s the decoupling of the front-end experience from your back-end technology infrastructure.
Put differently, headless commerce separates the digital storefront from the underlying systems and engines that drive your business. Brands that feel limited from templated front ends can be freed to offer customers a highly personalized experience.
With a headless architecture, merchants can turn new technologies into a digital storefront with commerce functionality, including:
- Social media
- Mobile apps
- Smart mirrors
- Self-serve kiosks
- Vending machines
- Voice-assisted technology (like Amazon Alexa)
- Wearables
