Many of the biggest names in e-commerce, from Amazon to Nike, have adopted headless commerce solutions to streamline their customers’ digital shopping experiences.
But what sets headless commerce apart from other monolithic platforms, and is it the right solution for your business?
In this Evolving Industry conversation, Joshua Williams, Staff Engineer at Intevity, helps us unpack the benefits of this forward-thinking e-commerce architecture.
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As more consumers flock to online shops, businesses are constantly trying to optimize their digital shopping experiences.
That’s why many Fortune 500 companies have adopted headless commerce.
Headless is an e-commerce architecture in which the front end (the part users interact with) is separated from the back end (data management and processes).
According to a 2022 Salesforce study, 77% of companies that adopted headless commerce reported increased efficiency with changes to their digital storefronts.
"It allows you to adopt and optimize very specific areas of your application. So, if you adopt into headless, that allows you to have more complete control of the data, stand up services in between, [and] add caching layers where necessary," Josh explained.
This flexibility can transform traditionally slow systems into fast and efficient ones, ensuring a seamless user experience.
Josh emphasized that this isn't just about making minor improvements but fundamentally changing how your platform operates.
"Say you've got an old platform that is traditionally very slow at processing aspects of it,” he said. “If you remove a lot of the other rendering aspects of it and just grab the data… you can do a lot of fun things in between to really expedite and speed up a traditionally slow system."
As Josh pointed out, digital shoppers expect instant gratification, and any delay can lead to disengagement, so this kind of optimization is crucial in today's fast-paced digital world.
"If your users are able to just navigate and flow throughout your website seamlessly and very quickly as if it's a standalone application on their phone, it makes them happy.”
This engagement is key to reducing bounce rates and increasing conversions, making headless commerce a powerful tool for any e-commerce business.
Common Inflection Points Leading to Headless Implementation
Many businesses face crucial moments when transitioning to headless commerce becomes necessary.
These inflection points often arise from the need to meet unique business requirements that standard solutions cannot address.
"You've got the option to force the out-of-the-box solution to work the way you need it to or write it intelligently once, harnessing just those APIs, just those headless facets, in that particular area," Josh suggested.
Josh elaborated on this issue by sharing scenarios where businesses outgrow their initial platforms due to increased complexity and customer demands.
"Most of the e-commerce service providers have a headless solution that's there. It's just whether or not it was adopted,” he explained. “In time, just about most providers have adopted that headless capability."
Ultimately, headless platforms' speed and efficiency are too lucrative for most organizations to ignore.
“They have to keep current, keep modern, and compete,” Josh said.
Adopting a headless platform can be a daunting task, so Josh suggested starting with bite-sized chunks.
"You can do so in small steps. You can adopt part of your application at a time and even keep a lot of [your platform] live," he advised. “Ramp it up, dial it back, and ensure it’s working.”
This approach allows businesses to test the waters without fully committing right away.
“Say we just want to enhance and optimize our product detail pages or our search pages,” Josh suggested. “Start there. Just have those adopt the modern cutting-edge tech and send some of the other traffic there to see how it works."
This phased approach mitigates risks and provides valuable insights into the headless setup's performance and scalability.
Josh shared a practical example from his experiences implementing headless solutions.
"In today's day and age, it's never all or nothing,” he said. “So, say the actual checkout funnel is most important. We don't want to touch that. It works. And a lot of times, if the end-user has gotten to the point of checkout, they're likely going to complete it because they have their basket. They're already excited about these products. So you could pick and choose [other] areas."
To wrap up our discussion, Josh gave us some thought-provoking insight on staying ahead of the curve.
"Keep learning and stretching and evolve with the industry,” he said. “We live in such a [rapidly] changing world, and our industry is ever-changing. So don't get stuck. Evolve with it and roll with the punches."
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